Off the wire
Australian Labor poised for victory in Queensland election  • Feature: A Chinese judge's life-or-death struggle  • Spotlight: Venezuela marks anniversary of protests amid clashes  • China Voice: The Maritime Silk Route will not be built in a day  • China Voice: Why should China say no to "wrong Western values"?  • S. Korea posts trade surplus for 36 straight months  • Indian stocks open higher  • Hong Kong stocks close up 0.9 pct by midday  • Chinese media man believes more Chinese to visit Australia  • Nikkei ends slightly lower on stronger yen  
You are here:   Home

U.S. oil producer slashes budget by nearly 60 pct on oil crunch

Xinhua, February 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

American exploration and production company Apache Corp. said Thursday it will cut its capital budget by more than 57 percent this year to cope with falling oil prices.

"We have planned our budget and operations in such a way that we can dynamically manage our activity levels and capital spending to respond quickly to material changes in commodity prices," John Christmann, Apache's chief executive officer and president, said in a statement.

The company reported a 4.8 billion dollars loss in the fourth quarter of 2014, the equivalent of a 12.78 dollars loss per share, compared with earnings of 174 million dollars, or 43 cents per share, during the fourth quarter of 2013.

On the same day, offshore driller Hercules Offshore said it has laid off 30 percent of its workforce since October last year because of the oil crunch.

Both companies' move came amid a string of budget cuts and job reductions by oil producers and services companies in the United States.

Earlier, Halliburton Co., one of the world's largest oil-field services companies, said it will cut 5,000 to 6,500 works to adjust to the falling crude prices.

That brings the number of layoffs announced by the world's four biggest oil field services in recent weeks to over 30,000 around the world, tantamount to about 9.4 percent of their overall workforce, according to the Houston Business Journal. Endi