Crude oil's collapse will cost 9,000 jobs at Schlumberger

Gary Strauss | USA TODAY

Oilfield services giant Schlumberger plans to cut 9,000 jobs as the global collapse in crude oil prices crimps production in 2015 and perhaps even longer.

The cuts — nearly 8% of Schlumberger's 120,000 workers, were announced Thursday "to better align with anticipated activity levels for 2015,'' the company said.

With production surging and waning growth, the world is awash with oil. That's led to a collapse in prices that's taken benchmark crude price down more than 50% since last June. Thursday, West Texas Intermediate fell 4.6% to $46.22 a barrel, while Brent crude slipped 2% to $47.67. Yet many forecasters say crude isn't close to bottoming.

"In this uncertain environment, we continue to focus on what we can control,'' said CEO Paal Kibsgaard. "We have already taken a number of actions to restructure and resize our organization that have led us to record a number of charges in the fourth quarter. We are convinced that performance must now be driven by an accelerated change in the way we work through our transformation program."

The layoffs come despite a relatively solid fourth-quarter earnings report in which the Houston-based Schlumberger increased revenue 6% to $12.6 billion and boosted earnings 11% to $1.94 billion. Schlumberger is also boosting its stock dividend 25%.

Schlumberger shares were up 5.3% to $80.70 Friday.

Houston-based energy explorer Apache Corp. began laying off about 5% of its workers earlier this week.