Norway’s largest company, state-owned oil and energy conglomerate Equinor, is moving forward with what’s been dubbed its largest restructuring program in nearly 20 years. The goal is to position the company for a new energy era but won’t affect oil and gas jobs offshore.
Details remained sketchy, but newspapers Stavanger Aftenblad and Dagens Næringsliv (DN) reported that around 7,000 of Equinor’s roughly 25,000 employees will be affected. Equinor’s chief executive Anders Opedal warned of looming changes in the company’s organization when he released quarterly earnings last week.
Kjetil Hove, head of Equinor’s operations in Norway, told Stavanger Aftenblad that several divisions will be shut down but said the changes won’t involve major staff cuts. “This change is similar to when we merged (the oil operations of ) Norsk Hydro and Statoil (Equinor’s original name) into the same operating model,” Hove said. “So this is probably one of the biggest changes at Equinor in my time.”
Opedal speculated that Equinor, which is trying to diversify into non-fossil energy operations including wind power, will eventually have 5,000 fewer employees, perhaps by 2030, but that won’t affect offshore operations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
NewsinEnglish.no staff
