Lukoil planning 10% drop in investment, no staff cuts in 2015
DAVOS. Jan 22 (Interfax) - Lukoil is not planning to lay off staff this year but is not planning to hire new employees either, the oil major's chief, Vagit Alekperov, told reporters on the sidelines of the economic forum in Davos.
He also said the company was planning a 10% cut or about $1.5 billion in investments this year.
"We will not reduce the number of employees, but we will not hire new people, despite the fact that we will invest almost $5 billion of fixed assets in 2015, both in downstream and in upstream. With the workforce capacity that currently exists, we are raising labor productivity, and with the introduction of new management technologies, we will cover new facilities with the workers we already have," he said.
"This gives us the opportunity to save $1.5 billion rubles in the budget for 2015, which balances our budget with certain price indicators for oil and a certain ruble exchange rate," the Lukoil chief said.
Alekperov said that the company made maximum investments in 2011-2014. "We launched West Qurna-2, we practically implemented the entire downstream program: both hydro-cracking and catalytic cracking. We have prepared the Filanovsky field, the main investments were made in 2014," he said.
"Therefore we feel that the natural reduction of the investment program in 2015-2016 will balance the company's budget, he said, adding that the investment program for 2014 was about $15-$16 billion.