North Sea gas giant BG Group is set to cut jobs after confirming it was offering a voluntary redundancy scheme to its UK staff.
This was despite pledging to create hundreds of North Sea jobs as it considers its final plans for its Jackdaw discovery. Andy Samuel the managing director of BG Group’s European upstream business, welcomed tax breaks announced in this week’s Budget for ultra High Pressure High Temperature (uHP/HT) projects.
The company saw annual profits fall 5% last year to £4.6billion, as turmoil in Egypt led the firm to slash exports by declaring force majeure, in a region where the firm counts about one-fifth of its total production.
Reports earlier this week suggested the company was looking to cut up to 300 UK jobs and several hundred more at its operations in Australia.
The company said yesterday it was looking to reduce its UK headcount, although it has not set a number on the amount of staff it was looking to lose.
“We have invited UK contracted employees based at our head office in Reading to express their interest in a voluntary redundancy package,” a BG Group spokesman said.
BG Group employs around 1,100 staff in Reading, with offices in Aberdeen managing its North Sea operations. It has a 30.5% stake in the Jasmine field and a 2.15% stake in the Buzzard field, along with a majority interest in the Central Area Transmission system which brings gas onshore.
Overall, the oil major employs around 5,200 people in operations in more than 20 countries.
The company said earlier this year it was revising production forecasts down for the next two years, even with increased production from the North Sea and the expected start-up of its QCLNG LNG project in Australia.
Last night the company said the new high-pressure, high-temperature tax allowance announced in the Budget last week would improve the prospect of it going ahead with the £5billion Jackdaw project in the North Sea.
A spokesman for BG said: “We are looking at making a decision to proceed to the final phase of engineering design in a few months – probably around July. The allowance helps but there are many variables.”