Woodside cuts jobs to meet cost target
Woodside Petroleum has started cutting jobs in Perth as part of a broader cost reduction exercise.
Woodside Petroleum has cut at least 80 jobs from its Perth headquarters this week as it moves ahead with a plan to slash a third of business costs under interim chief executive Meg O’Neill, according to sources.
About 30 positions have been axed from its geoscience division while the energy giant has also reduced at least 50 more roles across its exploration, logistics and new energies units in the last few days, multiple sources told The Australian.
A number of staff took to LinkedIn to confirm their departure which follows less than a year after 300 positions were chopped as a result of the rout in oil and gas markets.
The nature of the roles being shed has raised speculation that Woodside may be placing less focus on developing new resources and instead developing known projects like Scarborough and Sangomar in Senegal.
Several hundred more jobs are expected to be lost before the end of the year. The LNG producer’s top executives are working their way through different business functions rather than a one-off cull, meaning the overall number of workers forced out may not be known for several more months.
The timing is somewhat curious given Woodside is weighing a major $16bn investment decision on its Scarborough gas field and Pluto plant expansion project while oil is back at two-year highs of over $US75 a barrel.
However, the company has since November last year promised to target cost savings of 30 per cent cost from its operations over the next three years, including a redesign of the organisation and an “enabled” workforce.
The reductions have also arrived in a week which has seen renewed chatter about a possible acquisition by Woodside of BHP’s petroleum business.
Sources in the market now suggest a planned deal by the $22bn listed energy producer has considerably progressed and is on track to be announced in about three weeks.
There is a growing view in the market that the acquisition relates to BHP’s entire global petroleum business rather than only its assets in Australia, as some had earlier expected.
Woodside on Friday repeated an earlier statement that it was focused on costs across the business, without commenting specifically on whether any jobs would be lost.
“Managing our costs and workforce are a normal part of Woodside’s business and operations,” a Woodside spokeswoman said.
“We remain focused on safe operations and the continued safe execution of our Sangomar project in Senegal and achieving our targeted final investment decision on the Scarborough and Pluto Train 2 developments in Western Australia.”
The LNG giant stood down 500 contractors from its North West Shelf and Pluto LNG plants in WA in March 2020, unions claimed, although Woodside would not confirm how many workers had been lost and said jobs had not been cut at Pluto. Some of those contractors have since been rehired.
Ms O’Neill has already signalled a cultural shake-up at the company after axing a policy that barred most staff from accessing top executive floors at the company’s Perth headquarters.
Woodside is in danger of being pipped as Australia’s largest oil and gas producer by market value should a $23bn merger between Santos and Oil Search proceed.