Baker Hughes Cut 3,000 Jobs in Q2, Plunges Deeper Into Red

Oilfield services group Baker Hughes said on Thursday that it had cut 3,000 jobs in the second quarter in a bid to increase annualized savings as its loss widened to US$911 million, from US$188 million for the second quarter last year.

The adjusted net loss was US$0.90 per share, compared to expectations for a loss of US$0.62 per share by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenues dropped by 39 percent annually and by 10 percent sequentially, to US$2.4 billion, on the back of steep decline in activities and increased pricing pressure, mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Baker Hughes’s corporate costs dropped to US$29 million in the second quarter, from US$42 million in the same period last year.

“The year-over-year reduction in corporate costs is mainly due to workforce reductions and lower spending,” the group said in its second-quarter statement.

Prior to the second-quarter layoffs, Baker Hughes had dismissed 2,000 employees in the first quarter and another 18,000 in 2015.

In April to June, Baker Hughes implemented cost cuts which put it on track to reach its target to achieve US$500 million in annualized savings by the end of this year, chairman and chief executive Martin Craighead said.

In early May this year, Baker Hughes and Halliburton announced the termination of their merger agreement, as the companies said they were unable to overcome the objections of federal antitrust regulators.

Looking ahead, Baker Hughes does not expect its North American business to improve in the second half of 2016, since its customers want to see a more sustained improvement in oil prices before deciding to raise their spending efforts. The group sees activity worldwide to continue on the downward trend in most countries, and steeper declines are projected in markets where lifting costs are higher. Therefore, Baker Hughes expects that the pricing environment will stay challenging.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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