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Schlumberger

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Schlumberger has cut 10,000 jobs in Q4 of 2015 amid the plunge in oil prices.

News of the near-10% jobs cull came as the oilfield services giant unveiled a net loss for the last three months of $1 billion – its first quarterly loss in 12 years.

Schlumberger’s revenues fell 39% to $7.74 billion, with CEO Paal Kibsgaard warning that there was “no signs” of an oil price recovery on the horizon.

The company also announced a $10 billion share buy-back program.Schlumberger job cut 2016

This news pushed Schlumberger’s shares 4% higher in after-hours trading. The stock price fell almost 20% is 2015 as investor worried that customers were cancelling projects as the oil price tumbled.

The profit figures were better than many analysts had expected, helped by heavy cuts to offset the slump in oil prices.

The latest job cuts added to the 20,000 redundancies Schlumberger had already announced earlier in 2015.

Paal Kibsgaard warned that there were “no signs of pricing recovery in the short to medium term”.

“Negative market sentiments intensified in the fourth quarter, with oil over-production continuing and extending the bearish trend in global inventories,” Schlumberger said in its report.

The dramatic fall in prices “prompted customers to make further cuts to already significantly lower investment levels,” the company said, pointing to “unscheduled and abrupt activity cancellations.”

Oil prices have dipped below $28 a barrel in a drawn-out slump since mid-2014.

Many analysts have slashed their 2016 oil price forecasts, with Morgan Stanley analysts saying that “oil in the $20s is possible”.

Economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland say that oil could fall to $16, while Standard Chartered predicts that prices could hit just $10 a barrel.

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Oil industry giants, Halliburton and Baker Hughes, are in talks about a possible merger.

Baker Hughes, the industry’s third largest services provider, confirmed press reports, adding that the talks were “preliminary”.

Any deal with Halliburton, the sector’s No 2 behind the far larger Schlumberger, is likely to face competition issues.

The companies provide drilling and logistics services, but have been hit by falling oil prices and higher costs.

The falling crude oil price has made exploration less economical and the big oil and gas producers have been cutting costs. A tie-up would allow the companies to better weather the downturn in the market.

A merged Halliburton-Baker Hughes would create a company worth about $67 billion, employing initially 140,000 people. But its market capitalization would still be half that of market leader Schlumberger.

Analysts said that antitrust authorities in the US, Europe and China would want to investigate the terms of any deal, and that a merged group might need to sell some assets before approval was given.

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