MOSCOW (MRC) -- US oil giant ExxonMobil announced it plans to reduce its European workforce by up to 1,600 across the company's affiliates by the end of 2021 as part of its global review, reported Reuters.
Exxon said country-specific cuts will depend on the oil major's local business footprint and market conditions, after the COVID-19 pandemic hammered demand for its products and crude prices tanked.
Oil majors are axing jobs, lowering spending and curbing dividends in order to save cash amid a dismal outlook over energy prices which are expected to remain lackluster for years.
Last month, Exxon announced voluntary layoffs in Australia and said that job cuts will continue globally into 2021.
As MRC wrote previously, ExxonMobil, one of the world's petrochemical major, has undertaken a planned shutdown at its cracker in Singapore. The company halted operations at the cracker for maintenance on September 14, 2020. The cracker is expected to remain off-line till end-October, 2020. Located at Jurong Island, Singapore, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 1 million mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's overall PE production totalled 1,712,400 tonnes in the first seven months of 2020, up by 58% year on year. Linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) accounted for the greatest increase in the output. At the same time, overall PP production in Russia increased in January-July 2020 by 24% year on year to 1,063,700 tonne. ZapSibNeftekhim accounted for the main increase in the output.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world's oil and about 2% of the world's energy.
MRC