BP will cut about 15 percent of its workforce in response to the coronavirus crisis and as part of CEO Bernard Looney’s plan to shift the oil and gas major to renewable energy.
Bernard Looney told employees in a global online call that the London-based company will cut 10,000 jobs from the current 70,100.
“We will now begin a process that will see close to 10,000 people leaving BP – most by the end of this year,” Bernard Looney said in a statement.
The affected roles will be mostly senior office-based positions and not front-line operational staff.
About a fifth of the job cuts will take place in Britain, where BP employs 15,000 people, a company spokesman said.
BP has cut its 2020 spending plans after the coronavirus pandemic brought an unprecedented drop in demand for oil. BP has flagged a 25 percent cut to $12 billion this year and said it would find $2.5 billion in cost savings by the end of 2021 through the digitalisation and integration of its businesses.
BP on Monday said the company is likely to need to cut costs even further.
BP is giving no pay rises to senior employees until March 2021 and said it is unlikely to pay any cash bonuses this year.
The job reductions are also part of Bernard Looney’s drive to make the 111-year-old oil company more nimble as it prepares for the shift to low-carbon energy.
Bernard Looney last month announced a large round of senior management appointments, halving the size of BP’s leaderhip team under his plan to reshape the company’s structure.
Shortly after taking office in February, the 49-year-old CEO said that he was creating 11 divisions to “reinvent” BP and dismantle the traditional structure dominated by its oil and gas production business and its refining, marketing and trading division.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil producer, will cut between 10 percent and 15 percent of its global workforce as part of an ongoing restructuring.
Royal Dutch Shell, meanwhile, has initiated a voluntary redundancy programme.