As oil plunges, gov't moves to protect Ghanaian workers

Government has said it will work to ensure that Ghanaian workers in the oil and gas industry are not affected by job cuts as a result of falling oil prices.

Petroleum Minister Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah said in an interview with Joy FM that government has made clear its position to the oil firms on job cuts, including the need to protect some critical areas.

He said: “What we have done though is that we’ve put our feet on the ground, we’ve fought with the oil companies, we’ve made it clear that in this young industry when we are building capacity this is not where you cut and cut. We need to make sure that critical areas we protect.”

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Major oil firms are slashing jobs and holding back investment on new projects as oil prices hit eleven-year record low of $32.

BP slashed about 4,000 workers to cope with falling oil prices, while US oil company Chevron said last fall it will cut some 7,000 jobs. Shell also announced that it will eliminate 6,500 jobs.

According to Bloomberg, the number of jobs gutted from oil and gas companies around the world has now passed the 250,000 mark, with still more to come, according to industry consultant Graves & Co.

Oilfield services giant Schlumberger revealed this year that it has cut 10,000 jobs in the last three months amid downward spiral of oil prices.

Tullow plc, the energy giant with high presence in West Africa, reported a net loss of $1.03 billion in 2015. Tullow also announced a budget cut of $300 million in its budget for capital expenditure. The budget for this year is now 900 million dollars from an initial projection of $1.2 billion.

The cut is likely to affect future investment of the company.

In March last year, five major oil services companies, Halliburton, SchlumbergerStellaLogistics, BakerHughes and ExpoGas begun a retrenchment exercise that that saw 100 job cuts.

Ghana’s total oil revenue for the fourth quarter of 2015 dropped by 87 percent as compared to the total revenues in the third quarter.

Ghana recorded a total of US$ 44, 788, 915 in oil revenue receipts, according to figures from the Ministry of Finance, representing 87 percent drop from the third quarter’s US$341.50 million in oil receipts.

Global Brent crude benchmarks were at $34.93 a barrel at 12300 GMT at the start of 2016, the lowest since 2014.US crude futures also subsided 46 cents to $35.95 per barrel.

As oil plunges, gov't moves to protect Ghanaian workers

Government has said it will work to ensure that Ghanaian workers in the oil and gas industry are not affected by job cuts as a result of falling oil prices.

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