ConocoPhillips Energy Corporation Plans To Fire 1,000 Workers In 2016

Source: Houston Business Journal

Houston-based ConocoPhillips plans to cut another 1,000 jobs companywide, according to reports.

Most of the cuts will come from North America, and hundreds are expected in Texas, the Wall Street Journal reports. However, the company declined to disclose how many would be in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The cuts amount to 6 percent of ConocoPhillips’ workforce, which has already been reduced by 3,400 jobs since September 2014, the WSJ reports.

A large portion of those cuts — 1,800, or 10 percent of ConocoPhillips’ workforce at the time — were announced in September 2015. Of those cuts, more than 500 were expected to come from Houston.

ConocoPhillips has been cutting back in other ways, as well. Earlier this year, the company reduced its 2016 capital expenditure guidance to $5.7 billion, the second time it was cut since December, and slashed its quarterly dividend by 66 percent to 25 cents per share.

“We have taken several steps as a company to adapt to lower and more volatile prices and strengthen our position coming out of the downturn,” ConocoPhillips spokesman Daren Beaudo told the WSJ. “Over the past couple years, we’ve significantly reduced our capital activities and finished some major projects, which left us with more organizational capacity than we need.”

ConocoPhillips is the Houston-area’s fourth-largest public company, based on its 2015 revenue of $30.94 billion.

So far this week, Houston-based energy companies Halliburton Co. and Schlumberger Ltd. disclosed that they cut thousands of additional jobs in the second quarter.