It seems to me every year there was staffing reductions. Sometimes it was large groups of people sometimes a few here and a few there. It is my observation that to constantly change the organizational chart constantly moving people around is a sign of weakness and a sign of failure to plot out a course for the future. What do you think?
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at least 5 significant rounds of mass terminations from 1/2015 until today.
the unrealistic bs of GAP (one former colleague called it "woo woo") still exists in exploration and parts of HR and Finance. Dr.jd should've been retired for his role in chasing pseudo-science. Savings from eliminating GAP would've been more than what will be saved on staff reductions this year. If you doubt that, then look it up.
Yup, "welcome to the oil patch". It's true, this industry has a bad history of layoffs. Still, don't let anybody fool you. What's happening now is far worse than the 80s and 90s. Back then companies planned for low prices. They targeted hard to find conventional fields and only pursued projects with breakevens in the mid to upper teens. The wells typically had high sustainable flow rates and declined slowly over many years. When prices fell companies could ride out the downturn by deferring expenses (like drilling) without seriously impacting production. Staffing cuts were mainly to appease Wall Street and improve profit margins, not to avoid bankruptcy. There was also a sense supply & demand were slowly heading back towards a balance. Most of the major fields were in decline and demand was steadily rising. Yes, many lost their jobs, but a long-term career was still possible.
Today the dynamics are completely different and much more serious. Most current development efforts are directed towards unconventionals. Yet, shale drilling requires significantly higher prices to reach breakeven, more like 40s and 50s. The well flow rates are much lower too and production drops rapidly. That makes development a high cost treadmill dependent on constant drilling of new wells to maintain production and cash flow. Today’s staffing cuts are meant to slow cash burn rate and delay bankruptcy in a market flooded with oil. Worse still, the unconventionals are just getting started. Their predictability guarantee’s a kneejerk supply increase and subsequent price correction every time oil prices fluctuate higher. At best, narrow margins and short staffing are here for the foreseeable future. Someday that may change, but given the nature of the unconventionals, a significant turnaround isn’t likely for another decade or two.
If you’re young, don’t get lulled into thinking you can have a long-term career in this industry. That’s always been a longshot and it’s even less likely today. Save what you can, develop an exit strategy and find something new. You’ll be much happier in the long run.
As for GAP, it may no longer be actively promoted at Noble, but that doesn’t mean it’s impact doesn’t linger. It does. GAP was and is a distraction, to take people’s attention from the important things, like managements ineffectiveness.
To @1ddq+15U0O102; it's not just a GAP obsession, it's a management problem. Not being able to see through that overpriced debacle called GAP tells a person a lot about Noble management. The real problem is Noble management, they really need to figure it out. It's not that hard, but you have to have awareness and a smaller ego to get there.
Welcome to the oil patch , Peaches .
It’s oil & gas, layoffs happen. Time to move on from your GAP obsession - Noble hasn’t promoted it for years.
I remember at least seven layoffs at Noble, in about ten years.
History repeats itself when we don't learn from it. There was a time in industry not so long ago, when companies figured out how to run lean. They could weather downturns without laying people off. Then came the next boom. History was forgotten by Noble's upper management. GAP training took place which led to unrealistic, overly optimistic unobtainable goals. Management didn't think it was necessary to communicate with the technical staff, which left management clueless. Too many people were hired, positions were duplicated. That is one of the major reasons Noble has had so many layoffs. Many other companies hired too many also. History repeats itself, learn from it.
Shell and Exxon (and probably most majors) had layoffs essentially every year from the mid 80's to the late 90's.