SBM Offshore to Cut 300 More Jobs

File photo: SBM Offshore

AMSTERDAM, May 7 (Reuters) – SBM Offshore, the Dutch oil and gas platform leasing company, said on Thursday it was cutting 300 jobs in addition to the 1,200 redundancies it announced last year, saying the low oil price had led clients to postpone investment decisions.

The company, which has already been fined a record $240 million by Dutch authorities over improper payments to officials in Equatorial Guinea, Angola and Brazil, said discussions with Brazilian authorities over a settlement were continuing.

In its first-quarter trading update, the company said it had earned revenue of $601 million so far this year and stuck to its forecast of $2.2 billion in revenue for 2015. It said net debt would come in at below $3.5 billion.

“A continuously challenging macro environment has impacted the turnkey segment as clients postpone investment decisions,” Chief Executive Bruno Chabas said in a statement. “The Lease and Operate segment continues to perform, as it is unaffected by oil price fluctuations.”

SBM Offshore is one of more than 20 companies believed by Brazilian police and prosecutors to have paid bribes in exchange for contracts with state-run Petrobras, Brazil’s largest oil company.

Dutch prosecutors said in November that SBM Offshore’s Brazilian sales agents, who received at least 139.1 million euros in commissions, made payments to Brazilian government officials via offshore entities.

SBM Offshore is the world’s largest leaser of floating oil production ships known as FPSOs, while Petrobras uses more such vessels than any other company. (Reporting By Thomas Escritt, editing by David Evans)

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