The COVID-19 pandemic and the lower oil price environment are impacting offshore drilling activity. Some tenders and projects are being delayed or cancelled which adversely affects commercial prospects.

In light of the current commercial outlook, Maersk Drilling intends to stack a number of the company’s North Sea rigs. As a consequence, Maersk Drilling proposes to reduce the offshore crew pool and has now taken steps to initiate consultations with trade unions and employee representatives about redundancies in the company’s offshore crew pool in Denmark, Norway and the UK.

“Though it’s standard practice in our industry to adjust our workforce to activity levels, it never feels right to say goodbye to good colleagues, especially when so many have walked the extra mile to keep operations running in these very difficult circumstances. However, it’s our responsibility to safeguard our business and we are now taking steps to maintain competitiveness in the challenging market environment,” says CEO Jørn Madsen.

Maersk Drilling expects that the consultations will lead to a total of 250-300 redundancies in the North Sea crew pool. The individual consultation processes will follow varying timelines in compliance with local regulations in Denmark, Norway and the UK.

Source: Maersk Drilling