Petronas to cut 10% of workforce in restructuring exercise; operations in Canada to be retained

Petronas will be cutting 10% of its workforce in a restructuring exercise, CEO Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik said, reported Reuters.

The company will not be exiting its business in Canada, its CEO added. Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Petronas is considering the sale of its Canadian company, Progress Energy Resources. “Canada is crucial to our ambitions to preserve our position in the liquefied natural gas space,” Muhammad Taufik said.

In February, Muhammad Taufik said that Petronas intends to “right-size” its workforce as the global operating environment evolves and becomes increasingly challenging. The restructuring exercise aims to reduce the headcount of its enablers, or those in administrative roles. At the time, Petronas had up to 53,000 personnel in its global workforce, of which there are up to 16,000 enablers.

“This is not a retrenchment; it is a right-sizing workforce exercise. This is to ensure the survival of Petronas in the coming decades. If we don’t do it now, there will be no Petronas in 10 years,” Muhammad Taufik said in a media briefing in February.

The CEO also stressed that the right-sizing is not a result of the Sarawak government’s request to take over the gas aggregator role from Petronas in the gas-producing state.

The last time Petronas carried out a review of its workforce was in 2016, when it announced cuts of 1,000 jobs which were less than 2% of its total workforce at the time.

Petronas’ long-term role could focus on upstream exploration, as well as processing products from hydrocarbons, in line with its petrochemical segment’s expansion into specialty chemicals. The group is also looking at commercialising technology, best practices, and renewable energy.

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