Channel 2’s Lacie Grosvold spoke with oil industry analyst and blogger Joseph Triepke to get some idea of what cuts could mean for the rest overall.
Q&A: What do Schlumberger job cuts signal for Alaska oil?
Schlumberger, an oilfield services giant, plans to cut 9,000 jobs as the global collapse in crude oil prices crimps production in 2015 and perhaps even longer, USA Today reported.
What does that mean for Alaska?
Lacie Grosvold: You wrote an article about Schluberger’s job cuts announcement. Can you talk discuss some of the thoughts you shared there about what this signifies for the industry overall?
Joseph Triepke: The key takeaway for us is that Schluberger is the bellwether in the oil and gas industry particularly in the service industry, so this is the company that kind of sets the tone for the rest of the industry. I think the headline of itself is shocking, the company cutting 9,000 jobs. More importantly what it means is that other companies will feel the need to take some more action. They were probably already planning to do so but I think when Schluberger does something like this it gives everyone else in the industry some bigger comfort that they’re making the right call when they do something similar with their workforce.
Grosvold: Is there anything particularly interesting about how Alaska fits into the overall picture right now?
Triepke: I would tend to put Alaska in E and P {exploration and production} activity into a “frontier market” type of bucket and unfortunately in this situation what we do see is companies are backing away from frontier markets–be that ultra deep water be that arctic. These areas where costs are higher infrastructure and logistics are more challenged so operators are 500 tending to retreat a bit what they view as safer or more sure things. It is going to potentially impact some of these frontier markets to a greater extent.
Related Story: Schlumberger lays off 9,000
See Full Interview at AK-Pipeline
image credit fulcrium.com
