Cairn Oil & Gas Lays Off 300 Workers

Cairn Oil & Gas has trimmed its workforce by 300 workers in a redundancy exercise as low oil prices hit India’s largest private oil producer.

This has brought down Cairn’s employees count to 1,400 from 1,700, according to sources.

“Cairn Oil & Gas, Vedanta Ltd follows a robust performance management system and made the humane choice of delaying appraisal cycles and related exits due to the untenable situation caused by the pandemic. The recent exits are a result of organic career progression, voluntary movements, job rotations within the conglomerate, natural exits on account of annual appraisals, retirement and non-renewal of contracts,” Cairn said in response to Economic Times query.

“We will continue with our recruitment process to ensure growth and business continuity.”

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Cairn’s CEO Ajay Dixit left the company at the end of May after his employment contract expired.

Cairn, which contributes about a quarter of India’s oil output, is facing a double whammy of declining production and a slump in oil prices.

Its oil and gas production fell 14 per cent year-on-year in the fourth quarter as it struggles with ageing fields. Oil and gas revenue fell 24 per cent year-on-year during the quarter.

A dramatic fall in oil prices that began in March has hurt Cairn and other oil producers.
Prices had fallen to under $20 a barrel in late April but have now recovered to $40 but are still way below $66 at the beginning of the year.

Vedanta, which is seeking to delist its shares from local bourses, reported a loss of Rs 6,732 crore on a revenue of Rs 35,417 crore in 2019-20. Vedanta also deals in zinc, aluminium, copper, iron ore and steel.

Low prices have pushed several oil and gas producers around the world to reduce capital-spending plans and cut jobs. Some oil companies have also filed for bankruptcy.

Source:www.energynewsafrica.com