BP lays off 10,000 with oil price 'well below' levels needed for profits

In a letter to staff yesterday, BP CEO said, "We introduced a three-month redundancy freeze back in March to ease some of the immediate worry for people. That moratorium ends today. We will now begin a process that will see close to 10,000 people leaving bp - most by the end of this year. The majority of people affected will be in office-based jobs. We are protecting the frontline of the company and, as always, prioritizing safe and reliable operations." He added, "The oil price has plunged well below the level we need to turn a profit. We are spending much, much more than we make - I am talking millions of dollars, every day. And as a result, our net debt rose by $6 billion in the first quarter. We have to spend less money. And we are in action on that: We are working to bring down our capital expenditure by 25% this year - which is a reduction of around $3 billion; It currently costs around $22 billion a year to run the company - of which around $8 billion is people costs; So we are driving down those operating costs by $2.5 billion in 2021 - and we will likely have to go even further."