Shell cuts 2,800 IT jobs

28 April 2004

AMSTERDAM — Anglo-Dutch energy firm Royal Dutch Shell is to cut 2,800 jobs over the next three years at its technology division sites in the Netherlands, the UK and the US. Some of the work will be outsourced to India and Malaysia, Shell said.

The third-largest oil company in the world denied that the cuts had anything to do with the resignation of key executives recently and downgrading of its proven reserves of crude oil.

Spokeswoman Lisa Givert told the media the job cuts were “about developing Shell’s IT efficiency”.

Company CEO Sir Philip Watts stepped down in early March and is being replaced by Dutchman Jeroen van der Veer.

Walter van der Vijver, former head of exploration and production, also resigned and was followed earlier this month by Shell’s Chief Financial Officer Judy Boynton.

Their resignations were in response to Shell having to downgrade estimates of its proven oil reserves several times in recent months. An internal report claimed Shell executives knowingly hid the firm’s oil and gas shortfalls from 2001 onwards.

Dow Jones reported that the strategy is aimed at cutting USD 850 million (EUR 713 million) in costs by 2008. It will involve reducing the head count in Shell’s technology division by between 1,900 and 2,800. The internal deadline for the restructuring exercise involving jobs in the UK, the US and the Netherlands is end-2006.

“All the jobs won’t be outsourced…. Some will go as part of the (manpower) rationalisation now underway across the division,” Givert told Dow Jones.

Subject: Dutch news + Royal Dutch Shell