Songa to shed 200 staff

Songa Offshore is planning to cut up to 200 staff and shut its offices in Aberdeen and South Korea, the firm announced yesterday.

The company said the US$30 million-saving move, which will see support functions centralized out of Norway, reflected current market conditions, which have seen oil prices plummet to persistent lows of around $30/bbl, from a high of more than $100/bbl in 2014. Of the staff cuts, about 76 would be staff and some 124 would be contractors, mostly those based in South Korea, Aberdeen and also Stavanger. 

Songa said it was "now transforming from being largely a projects organization to an optimized operating organization."

"The process will also include a rightsizing of the operating and staff organizations in Cyprus, Stavanger, Oslo and Bergen," said Songa. "The offshore organization is not affected by this process," it added.

"This is a very important and necessary adjustment of our organization to secure Songa Offshore's competitiveness and sustainability in an extremely challenging drilling market", says CEO Bjørnar Iversen.

Songa Offshore operates six rigs, with an additional rig, part of its series of four new Cat D semisubmersible, due to be delivered early 2016.

Image: The Songa Trym.