Oil giant Shell is not planning any further job cuts among its Aberdeen workforce, the company said yesterday.
The denial came after it emerged the company had intensified cost-cutting efforts in response to the fall in oil prices.
Shell’s head of exploration and production, Malcolm Brinded, told employees around the world in an e-mail that staff had to make tough choices.
He said: “We simply need much higher sustainable savings this year and I ask for real actions from all of you. Shed contractor staff, challenge requirements, eliminate consultancy work, reduce travel massively, cut overheads everywhere.”
The E&P boss pleaded for fewer meetings and “75% fewer slides”.
Mr Brinded is seeking to simplify Shell’s operations, which have a reputation for bureaucracy, and increase standardisation across the company.
It emerged last April that Shell was to cut about 300 posts in the Granite City by April, 2010.
At that time, the company had about 2,500 people working out of Aberdeen – a mix of staff and contractors – and a range of onshore posts are going.
The top-line job loss figure is 300, but it is anticipated that redundancies will fall to fewer than 200 after retirements and natural wastage are taken into account.
A spokesman for Shell in Aberdeen said yesterday: “The company is not planning any fresh job cuts among its workforce in the city on top of what was announced last April.”
Meanwhile, Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer said the company was intensifying its efforts on safety.
“Work is well advanced on group-wide life-saving rules that focus on situations where the risk of death or injury is the highest,” he said in a separate e-mail to staff.
“We will introduce them to all employees and contractors in the first half of the year.”