Shell to cut 140 jobs for stronger competitiveness in Norway: report

Energy company Shell said 140 positions will be removed in Norway to help it remain competitive in the challenging time with low oil prices, Norwegian public broadcaster NRK reported on Wednesday.

The employees of the oil and gas company were however not informed about how many and in which departments jobs will be cut, the NRK said, adding all the employees will get an opportunity to apply for severance package.

"This is challenging and demanding for all of us, but the changes are necessary to ensure our competitiveness," Tor Arnesen, CEO of Norwegian Shell, told the NRK.

Shell will continue to be an active operator in Norway and have the capacity to embrace future challenges, he added.

The company said the job cuts are due to the merge between BG Norge and Norwegian Shell. The merged company will operate the oil fields of Ormen Lange, Draugen, Knarr and Gaupe on the Norwegian continental shelf.

Both companies have 820 employees and around 140 will be cut off. Jan Soppeland, PR officer in Shell, told the NRK that most of the job cuts will be related to administration as these functions are too many in relation to the current projects and the type of work.

Kristiansund, a city in southern Norway, is one of the company's major bases in the Nordic country, and Soppeland said that he could not comment about the consequences for the Kristiansund base, where minor cuts are expected.

"Kristiansund will be partly spared because that is where our operation center is located. This is where we operate Draugen and partly Ormen Lange fields, and this part of the business is closely connected to the oil and gas production," he said.

He emphasized however that this would not have a negative impact on investment in Norway.

"We understand that it may look like that, but we will have a new, simpler and more flexible organization, which will make it easier for us to develop in Norway," Soppeland said. Endi