MOSCOW (MRC) -- British oil giant BP is laying off employees in Houston, Texas, to cope with falling oil prices, but the company declined to say how many jobs will be cut, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.
The firm expects all of its organizational changes to be completed by the end of the first quarter, with more layoff announcements to come in the next few weeks. In late June 2014, BP had 7,200 employees in Houston when oil prices were higher.
Headcount reductions in its Gulf business have come the same day BP announced it sold around half of its equity stake in two major Gulf oil fields to Chevron. Earlier this week, BP told employees it would freeze pay across the company this year.
"The current price environment has caused operators to look at their cost structure and undertake efforts to drive efficiencies," BP spokesman Brett Clanton said.
As MRC reported earlier, BP had divested more than USd43 billion in assets in recent years to slim down after it incurred USD42 billion in liabilities related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Late last year, BP said it would incur restructuring charges of USD1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014 through the end of 2015. The restructuring charges will stem largely from severance packages after the company makes thousands of layoffs around the world.
BP is one of the world's leading international oil and gas companies, providing its customers with fuel for transportation, energy for heat and light, retail services and petrochemicals products for everyday items. BP Zhuhai is in plans to start a new purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in China. The exact start-up schedule of the plant could not be ascertained. To be located in Zhuhai province, China, the plant will have a production capacity of 1.25 million mt/year.
MRC