Lifestyle

Two Offshore Drilling Companies are Making Big Cuts to Gulf of Mexico Jobs

By  | 
Tony Maples Photography

 

According to Offshore Magazine, two offshore drilling companies in the Gulf of Mexico, Transocean Ltd. (from Switzerland) and Atwood Oceanics Inc. (from Houston), are cutting about 200 jobs.

The Houston Business Journal says the companies have already notified the Texas Workforce Commission and, “approximately 110 to 120 employees on Transocean’s Deepwater Asgard and about 86 employees on the Atwood Condor will be affected.” Letting the employees know reportedly began on January 30th.

Local company Atwood Oceanics hopes to relocate some employees to another site, while Transocean says that will have to wait and see if they get another contract before they say if they’ll pull laid off employees back in.

Transocean says they offer everyone a severance package, but they have let many employees go lately. They cut around 200 jobs last year, started this year off eliminating about 75 Houston-based jobs, and they say they’re planning on cutting “up to 190 jobs on two deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico – Discoverer Deep Seas and Deepwater Champion – in February 2017 and between 70 and 80 jobs on the Discover Americas drilling rig in March.”

Both of the companies note that those who lost their jobs will not have “bumping rights,” which means they won’t be able to come back in and take a position with less seniority than the one they previously held.