US oil company to cut 6,000 jobs

US oil services company Halliburton plans to eliminate up to eight percent of its global workforce in response to a “challenging market environment” due to falling oil prices.

Halliburton, the world’s second-largest oilfield services company, said Tuesday it plans to cut about 6,000 positions from its 80,000 workforce around the world.

The reduction includes 1,000 jobs that had been reduced in the eastern hemisphere in late 2014, Emily Mir, a spokeswoman for Halliburton, said in an e-mailed statement.

“We are faced with the difficult reality that reductions are necessary to work through this challenging market environment,” Mir said. “The impact will be across all areas of Halliburton’s operations.”

Similar layoff plans had been announced by Schlumberger, Weatherford International and other oil-services companies.

Leading oil companies have cut billions of dollars in planned spending for 2015 in response to falling oil prices.

The price of oil has declined about 60 percent since June of last year as a result of a global oversupply and decreasing demand. US oil is currently hovering around $50 a barrel, down from about $110 in June.

The growth of US oil production may stop in the second half of 2015 and could decline in 2016 if global oil prices remain low, a recent report suggested.

According to IHS, more than half of US oil wells drilled in 2014 were uneconomic below $60 a barrel, and 30 percent of new wells were unprofitable below $81. Just 25 percent of the wells drilled last year were profitable at a price of $40 or less.