WILLISTON, N.D. -- In April, Halliburton closed its Minot offices and transferred workers from there to Williston and Dickinson, although they declined at the time to say how many.
Now, just a few months later, with drilling rig counts dropping and hundreds of wells waiting to be completed, Halliburton has confirmed there have been additional layoffs from their Williston offices.
“Halliburton has made adjustments to its workforce in Williston based on current business conditions,” says Emily Mir, director of public relations for Halliburton. She is based in Texas. “We are committed to ensuring separated employees are treated with dignity and respect.”
The company would not disclose how many were being laid off from the Williston offices.
“Halliburton will continue to monitor the business environment and will adjust the size of our workforce to align with current business demands as needed,” Mir said. “Details of specific businesses and the number of employees is competitive information, and therefore unavailable.”
Halliburton is in the midst of seeking regulatory approval for acquisition of Baker Hughes, a $34.6 billion oil move that would be among the largest in the past 20 years. If the deal closes, it would be just behind the ConocoPhillps acquisition of Burlington Resources in 2005 for $36 billion.
To get the regulatory green right, Halliburton is being required to sell about $7.5 billion in assets to a single buyer. Weatherford International, Nabors Industries Ltd. and General Electric are identified as among the bidders for drill bits and drilling services units in a recent Bloomberg report.
The company says it remains committed to closing the deal in 2015. The acquisition agreement would allow the closing to extend into 2016, however.
The merger has not been the reason for recent job cuts, company spokesmen for the two companies say.
The two companies have cut 14,000 and 13,000 jobs respectively since starting to make cuts last year, according to the latest quarterly securities filings in July, or 16 and 21 percent of the total headcount respectively.
Halliburton’s payroll was at 80,000 last year and Baker Hughes was at 62,000, according to regulatory papers.
