Three months after ConocoPhillips confirmed it planned employee layoffs following the company’s $23 billion buyout of rival Marathon Oil, there are fears the cuts will perhaps soon trickle down to the firm’s former headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Rumors, and that’s all they are for now, suggested some of the 1,300 ConocoPhillips employees in the northeast Oklahoma city will be among those who could lose their jobs.
“We are always looking at how we can be more efficient with the resources we have. As part of this process, we have informed employees that global workforce reductions are anticipated. We are working through the process carefully and won’t speculate on numbers while our evaluation is ongoing,” said Dennis Nuss, Director of Media Relations and Crisis Communications with the company.
News on 6 in Tulsa reported this week “a tip received by News On 6 suggests a large number of the roughly 1,300 workers in Bartlesville could be laid off by December.”
If so, it should not be a surprise since ConocoPhillips reportedly hired management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group following the mega-merger with Marathon Oil, and did so with the intention of restructuring and getting advice on a layoff program. Such was reported in April by
EnergyNow.com.Sources within the company informed the publication that ConocoPhillips launched a restructuring of operations and announced it pllanned to centralize some functions.
The layoff rumors follow reports last week that ConocoPhillips has been in corporate talks with Stone Ridge Energy, a West Virginia-based energy firm, to sell its Oklahoma assets for about $1.3 billion. It was reported that the talks were in an “advanced stage.”
As reported, Oklahoma City-based Flywheel Energy, would operate the assets for Stone Ridge, a firm headquartered in Morgantown, West Virginia and known for its operations in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.
Stone Ridge had an odd history as its previous owner, Donald Supcoe, III had been the owner of Stone Ridge Energy until his
sudden death 13 months ago. He was only 39.
However, Supcoe’s death came two years to the month after he and another worker had been charged by the Pennsylvania Attorney General with
criminal charges related to environmental hazards during drilling operations when they were employed by Energy Corporation of America and later Greylock Production, LLC.
failed to abide by the environmental regulations that were applicable to the use of onsite pits and directed the transfer of
water in a manner that utilized the onsite pits as centralized impoundments. He also directed the burial of waste on the former Hoge Noce well pad and was involved in the spill of surfactant at
the Beacon well pad. All of this activity allowed contaminants to enter into the soil and groundwater in the area. Supcoe’s illegal conduct adversely affected the environment and the lives of the neighbors living near the sites.”
