More than 10,000 people working at Mexican oil service companies were laid off this week as state-owned Pemex cut contracts in the face of the global slump in crude prices. More job losses are expected.
Most of the companies are based in Ciudad del Carmen, on the Campeche Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, and were told this week that contracts wouldn’t be renewed with Pemex, as the world’s ninth largest oil producer is known. Job losses could rise to 50,000, Gonzalo Hernandez, secretary at the Ciudad del Carmen Economic Development Chamber, said in a phone interview.
“The city is in shock,” Stuart Hill, managing director of Xperto Offshore in Mexico, said in an interview from Ciudad del Carmen. “We were told it was based on Pemex’s budget reductions.”
Oil production at Pemex fell for the 10th straight year in 2014. The company posted a net loss of around $4.4 billion in the third quarter, its eighth consecutive quarterly loss.
The slump caused its tax payments to drop, prompting the finance ministry to withdraw 50 billion pesos ($3.4 billion) from Pemex on Dec. 26. This was to “make management of public- sector finances more efficient,” according to a filing from the company at the Mexican Stock Exchange.
Not Required
Some contracts weren’t renewed because the services are no longer required, according to a Pemexpress official, who asked not to be named citing company policy. The cuts are not related to company finances and no Pemex employees were laid off, according to the official.
The contract cancellations will not reduce oil output, the official said.
An internal Pemex memo issued Jan. 2 and obtained by El Financiero newspaper called for the termination of all outsourcing and technical personnel due to cost cuts.
Pemex drilled 19 exploratory wells through the first 10 months of last year, less than a quarter of the target, according to the National Hydrocarbons Commission.
Share prices of oil service companies have plummeted in recent months as crude fell.
Weatherford International Plc, which does business with Pemex, has fallen 54 percent since July 25. West Texas Intermediate crude fell below $50 a barrel this week, the lowest since 2009.
Energy Reform
President Enrique Pena Nieto passed legislation in 2013 to open the country’s energy industry to private investment and allow foreign drillers to pump Mexican crude for the first time since 1938.
Pemex responded by reforming its exploration and production division in November to improve efficiency.
The layoffs “seem to come from a combination of falling oil prices and the effects of the energy reform,” Hill said.
“Everyone is scared” of further cuts, he said.
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