Calgary-based Encana is cutting its workforce by 20 per cent, and some Encana employees weren’t surprised to hear the news.
One employee arriving at work Tuesday morning told Global News: “The writing’s on the wall. A lot of people have been kind of expecting it for a while.”
Another employee said: “We knew changes were coming and that the employees were looking for change, so I think everybody will be very supportive of the direction we’re going in.”
That new direction includes shutting down Encana’s Dallas-area office and laying off about 1,000 employees across the company.
“It will be impacting all of our office locations,” said Encana President and C.E.O. Doug Suttles.
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“It will include technical skills such as engineers and geologists, all the way to some of our administrative support staff and some of our financial staff.”
Suttles said the company made the decision after taking a hard look at its asset base, capabilities and competitive position, while looking ahead to the future.
It’s a future that Suttles said will likely see natural gas prices remain low for another five to six years before rebounding.
Analyst Bob Shultz at the University of Calgary says with low natural gas prices, Encana had to do something.
“Natural gas prices are down, cash flow has been quite negative for Encana and so they have to restructure.”
Encana will be concentrate its capital investment on five profitable oil and liquid-rich resource areas in North America, instead of juggling 30 different ones.
It’s splitting off more than five million acres of its Clearwater lands in southern Alberta to create a new company to manage the region.
The job cuts should be mostly complete by the end of this year.
With files from Canadian Press
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