MOSCOW (MRC) -- China National Petroleum Company plans to cut staff at its Beijing headquarters by 20%, the company said in a post on its social media blog, the latest move in an efficiency drive by the country's top state energy group, reported Reuters.
The staff reduction plan is the first among Chinese state energy giants amid a 2-1/2-year oil price rout that has forced global energy peers to roll out sweeping cost-cutting measures as profits sank.
The staff cut will be completed by March next year, with some employees relocated to specialized business units.
The move will also reduce the number of departments at the headquarters. Some divisions will be merged, such as the quality and standards supervision departments, which will be combined into one, the report said.
"This is consistent with the Chinese government's reform drive to streamline state-owned enterprises, with a focus on profitability," said Gordon Kwan of Nomura Research.
"CNPC takes the lead as it's under greater cost-cutting pressure compared to Sinopec, which has enjoyed decent refining and petrochemical margins thanks to lower oil prices," said Kwan.
Company press officials were not immediately available for comment. CNPC is parent of PetroChina.
Earlier in 2016, CNPC carried out a major restructuring, including selling USD11 billion worth of financial assets to a listed unit, and announcing plans to transfer its oilfield services business into another listed unit.
As MRC informed before, in 2014, the Board of Directors of the PetroChina-Rosneft Orient Petrochemical (Tianjin) Company Ltd, a joint venture of Rosneft and CNPC, endorsed the Feasibility Study (FS) for the project to construct the Tianjin refinery as regards the oil refining package at a meeting in Beijing.
Besides, in 2013 CNPC announced that it would join UzIndoramaGazChemical, a joint venture that will build a USD2.5 bln complex to produce polyethylene at the Mubarek Gas Refinery in Uzbekistan's Kashkadarya region. CNPC had signed a memorandum to join Uzbek national oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz and Singapore's Indorama Group in the joint venture.
China National Petroleum Corporation operates oil and gas assets in Africa, Central Asia/the Russian Federation, America, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific, and other regions. The company engages in hydrocarbon exploration and production operations in onshore and offshore areas; operates refineries and petrochemical enterprises that produce crude oil products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene and lube oil, etc.; and manufactures and supplies chemical products, such as synthetic resins, fibers, rubber, urea, organic/inorganic chemical products.
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