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Hercules Offshore lays off 30 percent of workforce
Fuel Fix ^ | Ryan Holeywell | Ryan Holeywell

Posted on 02/13/2015 4:29:49 AM PST by thackney

Offshore driller Hercules Offshore has laid off 30 percent of its workforce since October, company officials said on a conference call with analysts Thursday.

The Houston-based company had about 2,200 employees, according to its most recent annual report. A company executive said Hercules has shed 672 workers in several rounds of layoffs in recent months.

That would be just about double the number of employees Hercules said it would lay off by the end of December in a similar announcement last year.

John Rynd, the company’s CEO, also said the company may consider cutting its contribution to workers’ 401K plans and reducing pay.

Rynd said the cuts occurred worldwide. The company’s workforce, he said, is one of its biggest expenses.

“We’ve taken a big axe to that,” he said.

In response to slowing demand for offshore rigs, the company has cold-stacked five rigs in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.

The company reported a net loss of $154.1 million in the fourth quarter. It suffered a net loss of $101.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. For the year, it suffered a net loss of $216.1 million, compared to losses of $68.1 million in 2013.

Rynd said the challenges facing his company have been compounded by the fact that oil prices took a dive at the same time producers — his customers — were planning their 2015 budgets.

He said producers are putting pressure on Hercules to reduce its day rates and demand for offshore rigs is waning.

“What’s the duration of this cycle?” Rynd said. “None of us have that answer.”


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: energy; offshore; oil

1 posted on 02/13/2015 4:29:50 AM PST by thackney
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Driller: More than 1,000 field hands out of work as rigs decline
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/02/12/driller-more-than-1000-field-hands-out-of-work-as-rigs-decline/

Rig contractor Precision Drilling Corp. says more than 1,000 of its trained rig crew workers are out of work as oil companies have idled hundreds of rigs across North America.

Fifty of Precision’s 250 drilling machines, each with crews of 20 to 25 field hands, are no longer running after oil prices have been cut in half since last summer, the firm said in its fourth quarter earnings release Thursday.

“Precision recruited, trained and developed many excellent crews to support the demands of our customers over the past several years, and unfortunately we now don’t have work for many of these dedicated workers,” Precision CEO Kevin Neveu said in a written statement.

“When the industry begins to add rigs again, I am certain Precision rigs will be among the first to be re-activated and I know we will do everything we can toget our Precision trained crews back up and operating our rigs,” he said.

The Canadian rig contractor, which has about 100 rigs deployed to U.S. oil fields in Texas, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Louisiana, had a $114 million net loss, or a loss of 39 cents a share, in the fourth quarter.

That’s compared to a gain of $67.9 million, or 24 cents a share, in the same period the year before. Revenues grew from $566.9 million to $618.5 million. The company took a $222 million charge for decommissioning 29 rigs and goodwill impairments.

Precision, which has its main U.S. office in Houston, employs 8,530 workers, mainly in North America. Its shares have fallen 61 percent to $5.66 apiece in the last seven months.

The contractor’s layoffs are only the latest in a string of cutbacks in the oil patch. Services firm Halliburton Co. and oil equipment maker FMC Technologies have said this week they’re laying off more than 7,000 employees combined.


2 posted on 02/13/2015 4:30:25 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney
I didn't even know those guys were still around!


3 posted on 02/13/2015 4:31:52 AM PST by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics)
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: thackney; Nachum; narses; SunkenCiv

Well, that IS the goal of the latest political drive to force DOWN oil prices:

(1) Destroy the economic justification for the Keystone pipeline.
(2) Destroy the fracking industry.
(3) Destroy the Texas (and ND, and oil communities nationally ... But Texas primarily.
(4) Punish red states.
(5) Drive down oil prices to promote Obola’s “economy” at the same time.

All this, aided by Russia’s need to make money, ISIS’s need to pump as much as possible while THEY control the oil territory in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, etc; and by Saudi Arabia’s desire to punish ISIS (in Iran) and Iran itself by still producing oil at high volumes.

BUT!

The mainstream media is doing its part as they remain instructed to keep issuing the whole time DIRE warnings and predicting catastrophe in jobs and fortunes IF OIL PRICES DON’T GO BACK UP! Thus, there are NO stories in Obola’s ABCNNBCBS press corpse touting the advantages to the economy of reducing oil prices. Those are limited, because then they’d have to admit that high oil prices that Obola wants (demanded!) destroyed the Bush economy back in 2007-2008.

That is: Although the Obola regime wants them to go down to punish Texas, it needs them to remain HIGH to support russia, to support their Muslim allies overseas, to support Venezuela and Nigeria and Iran and ISIS and Yemen and all of the rest of OPEC.

And, the Obola regime is desperate to keep oil prices high to maintain their drive to destroy the US and Western economies by their supposed fight against Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) by limiting energy consumption and raising energy prices to lower CO2 releases.

They can’t “win” on any side of this CACA mission. But they are trying to destroy both sides here!


5 posted on 02/13/2015 5:53:30 AM PST by Robert A Cook PE (I can only donate monthly, but socialists' ABBCNNBCBS continue to lie every day!)
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