Even when the Covid-19 downturn is finally past us, operators will have to continue exploring new avenues for cost reductions to be better equipped to withstand future market declines. In a report that looked into the adoption of robotics across the petroleum industry, Rystad Energy found that existing solutions could replace hundreds of thousands of oil and gas jobs globally and reduce drilling labor costs by several billion dollars by 2030, if there is an industry push for such a transition.
Schlumberger Ltd., the world’s largest oilfield services provider, will eliminate an additional 11,000 positions in a sign the industry will undergo another round of job cuts as a result of tumbling crude prices.
The latest announced reductions bring the company’s total to 20,000, making its workforce about 15 percent smaller than it was during the third quarter of 2014.
Schlumberger had announced plans in January to eliminate 9,000 positions, in what was then the single largest cut in the industry.
