Citing an “extremely demanding” market, Songa Offshore announced on Monday that it would reduce staff by as many as 200 people. The move makes Songa the latest company in Norway to cut jobs in the face of sharply lower oil prices and reduced oil company investment.
Songa Offshore called the job cuts a “very important and necessary adjustment of our organization, to secure Songa Offshore’s competitiveness and sustainability in an extremely demanding market.” Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported that the company most recently has been building so-called “Cat-D” rigs for Statoil at a shipyard in Busan, South Korea.
Songa is a drilling rig company based in Cyprus but controlled by Bergen-based Frederik W Mohn, one of Norway’s wealthiest men, through his company Perestroika. The company also faces extra costs on the construction of the new rigs in South Korea.
Most of the job cuts will be made at its project organizations in South Korea, Stavanger and Aberdeen, Scotland. They’re expected to cut Songa’s costs by around USD 30 million, reported DN.
newsinenglish.no staff
