Cur­tis Williams

Lead Ed­i­tor Busi­ness

cur­tis.williams@guardian.co.tt

BPTT yes­ter­day re­trenched more than 40 work­ers in what is ex­pect­ed to an ex­er­cise in which close to 100 em­ploy­ees will be let go from the com­pa­ny this week.

Guardian Me­dia has learnt that the first set of work­ers to get their pink slips were those in­volved in the pro­duc­tion of the com­pa­ny’s gas and con­den­sate and to­day, an­oth­er set of work­ers will be sent home as part of bpTT’s re­struc­tur­ing plans.

The com­pa­ny in­sist­ed yes­ter­day that it is do­ing its cuts in the most dig­ni­fied way pos­si­ble and of­fer­ing as­sis­tance to those im­pact­ed by the re­trench­ment and re­struc­tur­ing.

“We are pro­vid­ing on­go­ing sup­port to staff through our EAP provider and we are com­mit­ted to man­ag­ing these changes with the ut­most re­spect, dig­ni­ty and care for our em­ploy­ees,” bpTT said in a state­ment to Guardian Me­dia.

This ef­fec­tive­ly means that scores of high-pay­ing jobs in the lo­cal en­er­gy sec­tor will be lost and is in keep­ing with what has been a bru­tal time for work­ers in the cru­cial sec­tor.

Since 2018, thou­sands of jobs in the en­er­gy sec­tor have been lost, from Petrotrin’s clo­sure to the vir­tu­al dec­i­ma­tion of many small and mid-sized ser­vice con­trac­tors to now, bpTT, the coun­try’s largest en­er­gy pro­duc­er.

For months, bpTT em­ploy­ees have been wor­ried about whether they will lose their jobs and yes­ter­day saw re­lief for those who are be­ing kept on and sad­ness for the dozens sent home.

Guardian Me­dia has been told that all de­part­ments will be im­pact­ed and at all lev­els, mean­ing that even some man­age­ment po­si­tions will be made re­dun­dant.

Yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny was asked the fol­low­ing ques­tions:

Can bpTT say how many peo­ple were re­trenched from the pro­duc­tion de­part­ment to­day?

Can bpTT say how many peo­ple are go­ing to lose their jobs by the end of the week?

What mea­sures are in place to coun­sel those who are be­ing sent home?

What kind of pack­ages are those be­ing re­trenched re­ceiv­ing?

The com­pa­ny de­clined to give de­tails, in­stead re­mind­ing that the re­trench­ment is part of its over­all plan to re­struc­ture the com­pa­ny in keep­ing with the new di­rec­tion of BP PLC, its par­ent com­pa­ny head­quar­tered in the Unit­ed King­dom.

It said: “In Feb­ru­ary 2020, we launched our new pur­pose: to re-imag­ine en­er­gy for peo­ple and our plan­et and al­so an­nounced a bold new am­bi­tion: to be­come a net-ze­ro (GHG emis­sion) com­pa­ny by 2050 or soon­er, and to help the world get to net ze­ro. On 8 June 2020, bp an­nounced a glob­al re­struc­tur­ing in ser­vice of achiev­ing our new pur­pose and am­bi­tion. The chal­lenges fac­ing en­er­gy mar­kets as a re­sult of COVID-19 have since am­pli­fied the need for this re­struc­tur­ing which we be­lieve will cre­ate a more fo­cused, lean­er and bet­ter-in­te­grat­ed en­er­gy com­pa­ny.”

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, it had com­plet­ed the first phase of the re­struc­tur­ing process in which it of­fered vol­un­tary sep­a­ra­tion pack­ages and was now in­to the next phase of send­ing peo­ple home and in some cas­es of­fer­ing dif­fer­ent po­si­tions.

“Dur­ing that phase, staff mem­bers were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­press their in­ter­est to leave bp on a vol­un­tary ba­sis. We are cur­rent­ly in the next phase of our re­struc­tur­ing process in which we are no­ti­fy­ing em­ploy­ees about place­ment in­to roles in the re­designed or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

The com­pa­ny said it is pro­vid­ing sup­port to af­fect­ed staff and as a re­sult does not want to say much more on the is­sue.

“In ser­vice of this com­mit­ment, we are un­able to di­vulge any oth­er in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the re­struc­tur­ing,” bp TT said.

In a re­cent in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed that bpTT of­fi­cials had told him the com­pa­ny would be cut­ting 25 per cent of its work­force. When asked about how COVID-19 had af­fect­ed the econ­o­my, Row­ley told of the im­pend­ing job loss­es at the coun­try’s largest nat­ur­al gas pro­duc­er.

“Many gas-based in­dus­tries in Pt Lisas ap­pear to have moth­balled their plants. COVID has hit us hard, shrink­ing our econ­o­my by 10 per cent, even as we con­tin­ue to sup­port our hard­est-hit cit­i­zens at a big cost. As an oil and gas pro­duc­er, our pro­duc­tion and sale of oil has dropped glob­al­ly. COVID-19 came at a time when our oil and gas prices were al­ready soft­en­ing and had the ef­fect of fur­ther re­duc­ing con­sump­tion of methanol, urea am­mo­nia, LNG, oil and gas. It was a per­fect storm. Some plants in Point Lisas have shut down,” Row­ley said then.

“Just to­day, I was ad­vised by BP Trinidad they are re­duc­ing their staff by 25 per cent. All gas and oil mar­kets are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the same thing due to re­duced de­mand. Thou­sands of planes are on the ground, few­er cars are mov­ing about.”