Houston-based oil and gas giant Halliburton announced additional layoffs on Wednesday. This time, the layoffs are going to affect management level positions.
The company did not provide a certain number of job cuts but did state those affected would be notified within the next couple of weeks.
Insiders close to the situation state total worldwide layoffs could go as high as 20,000 employees.
Jeff Miller, Halliburton’s president and director, points out the cost cutting moves are aligned with current market levels.
“We must continue to manage through this extended industry down cycle by implementing additional cost reduction measures to protect the interests of all stakeholders,” Miller said in the memo.
Emily Mir, a spokesperson for the company reiterates these cuts are not related to the pending merger with Baker-Hughes. Keep in mind, if the company does not make the deal happen, Halliburton is liable for a $3.5 billion reverse termination fee.
Back in February, Halliburton had announced plans to start laying off about 6,400 employees. At the time, this was 8 percent of the company’s total workforce.
Amid cutbacks, the firm recently introduced a new technology that would create the next boom in the shale market.
Halliburton is dead set on continuing their dominance of the oilfield services market. First, came the $34 billion acquisition of Baker Hughes and now the revolution in refracking technology.
ACTIVATE Refracking Service, is Halliburton’s new extension to help bring consistency to refracking. According to Priyesh Ranjan, senior manager of business development, previous refracturing methods were not successful because they were unpredictable and not repeatable just like the odds of gambling in Las Vegas.
The technology comes at a time when drillers are finding it hard to maintain a well with oil prices at six-year lows. ACTIVATE leverages subsurface insight expertise and breakthrough diversion technology to help operators recover bypassed reserves from unconventional reservoirs repeatedly at one-third the cost of a new drill.
Halliburton brought the technology to market in July and stated it saw up to an 80 percent increase in estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) per well. Additionally, compared to new wells, ACTIVATE can reduce oil cost per barrel up to 66 percent and up to 25 percent increase in oil recovery of unconventional assets.
In the Eagle Ford and Haynesville plays the company is reporting 300 percent improvement in EUR in natural gas wells.
According to Rajan, ACTIVATE can create the next boom in the oil and gas industry.
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