Cenovus Energy eyes 500 to 700 staff cuts as it adopts reduce 2018 spending plan
The new arch executive of Cenovus Energy Inc. denounced skeleton for a leaner oilsands association Thursday, announcing hundreds of pursuit cuts, lower-than-expected 2018 collateral spending and a depart of 3 pivotal executives.
Alex Pourbaix, who transposed Brian Ferguson during a Cenovus helm final month, pronounced a association will pierce to get a financial residence in sequence one year faster than designed underneath a prior regime.
“We will build on a success of a divestiture module and work to surpass a goal, determined in Jun of this year, of achieving $1 billion in accumulative capital, handling and ubiquitous and executive cost reductions with a aim of accelerating these reductions over a subsequent dual years instead of three,” he pronounced in a statement.
The announced aim of a 15 per cent workforce rebate will interpret to between 500 and 700 employees and contractors from a new staff count of about 4,200, orator Brett Harris said.
The bad news for Cenovus employees follows cuts of 1,500 staff in 2015 and 440 in 2016 in response to oil prices that tumbled from over US$100 per tub in mid-2014 and have remained low.
Financial analysts applauded Cenovus’s belt-tightening.
Oilsands analyst Nick Lupick of AltaCorp Capital forked out that Cenovus’s average prolongation aim of 493,000 barrels of oil homogeneous per day in 2018, adult 4 per cent from this year, is in line with expectations notwithstanding a collateral spending bill of $1.6 billion entrance in good subsequent accord estimates of $2.1 billion.
The 2018 bill matches a $1.6 billion it expects to spend this year.
Christina Lake project continues
The association skeleton to continue construction of a new 50,000-barrel-a-day proviso during a Christina Lake oilsands project in northern Alberta, though will throttle behind other spending in both oilsands and required oil and gas operations.
It skeleton to spend $270 million in 2018 on a Christina Lake enlargement that is to start producing in mid-2019. The association remarkable a collateral cost is now approaching to be about $675 million, one-fifth revoke than formerly estimated.
Harris pronounced a deferral of work on expansion projects will concede a association to revoke staff in those areas.
It will also revoke workers as it completes a sale of 4 vital item packages and looks to sell a package of non-core required resources in a Deep Basin on a northern Alberta-B.C. border. The 4 deals are to move in a sum of $3.7 billion to assistance compensate for a buyout of many of a Canadian resources of Cenovus’s Houston-based oilsands partner, ConocoPhillips, for $17.7 billion progressing this year.
Other cuts will come from efficiencies opposite a company, Harris said.
Executive shakeup
Cenovus announced Thursday that Kieron McFadyen, boss for upstream oil and gas, would leave a association subsequent month and his purpose would be engrossed by Drew Zieglgansberger, executive vice-president for a Deep Basin.
It also pronounced Bob Pease is withdrawal his position as downstream boss and executive of U.S. operations and his purpose will be insincere by Keith Chiasson, who heads up oilsands production operations.
Ivor Ruste, a company’s arch financial officer given it was spun off from EnCana Corp. in 2009, is to retire in April. A hunt has been launched to find a replacement.
Harris pronounced a executive changes were motionless on following meetings between Pourbaix and comparison managers.
Pourbaix was arch handling officer for tube company TransCanada Corp. until final spring.​
- MORE BUSINESS NEWSÂ |Â Alberta chooses 3 companies to build 4 breeze energy projects in auction
- MORE BUSINESS NEWSÂ |Â Agrium buys Australian manure business Macrofertil
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cenovus-calgary-workforce-cuts-costs-energy-conocophillips-1.4447990?cmp=rss