Oil company Exxon to cut 2000 jobs in global restructuring

An Exxon Mobil Corp oil drilling site in Texas. Photo / Justin Hamel, Bloomberg

Exxon Mobil Corp plans to cut about 2000 jobs globally as the Texas oil company consolidates smaller offices into regional hubs as part of its long-term restructuring plan.

The reductions represent about 3% to 4% of Exxon’s global workforce and are part of the company’s ongoing efficiency drive, CEO Darren Woods said in a memo to employees. About half will be in Europe and most of the rest in Canada at Calgary-based Imperial Oil Ltd., which is nearly 70% owned by Exxon.

Chevron Corp, ConocoPhillips and BP Plc are among major oil companies to have also announced thousands of job cuts in recent months as crude prices tumbled this year in response to increased supplies from Opec and its allies.

Exxon, however, has been on a major internal restructuring push since 2019 as Woods sought to simplify the company’s sprawling global footprint that came as a result of the merger with Mobil two decades ago.

Exxon is making “tough decisions” that build upon a years-long effort to improve competitiveness, Woods wrote in the memo.

“The changes we’ve announced today will further strengthen our advantages and grow the gap with our competition, helping to keep us in the lead for decades to come,” he said.

The oil giant will cut 1200 positions in the European Union and Norway by the end of 2027, with layoffs making up half of the reductions, it said in a statement. Imperial will cut about 900 positions, or 20% of its workforce, in the same time period, helping reduce operational expenses by C$150 million ($185.9m) annually.

The regional hubs will focus on Exxon’s major growth initiatives such as oil in Guyana, liquefied natural gas along the Gulf Coast and trading globally. For example, the company recently announced plans to move employees from Brussels and Leatherhead, UK, to central London, where it’s recently been adding traders.

In Europe “we plan to bring the majority of our office and home-based employees together at or closer to our manufacturing sites in the region (including, for example, in Germany and Italy) and we intend to close a number of smaller offices,” the company said.

Exxon had nine functional companies that operated relatively independently from one another when Woods took over in 2017, creating layers of bureaucracy and duplication of support services. The company now has three main divisions – production, refining and low-carbon – all of which share services like engineering, IT and project management.

The changes have helped Exxon cut US$13.5b of annual costs since 2019, more than all other international oil majors combined, according to the company. It plans to increase this figure by 30% through the end of the decade.

Some savings have come through asset sales and workforce reductions, but Woods has said the changes also have led to better performance, such has improved maintenance of major facilities and better sharing of best practices between business units.

Exxon employed 61,000 people globally at the end of 2024, nearly 20% less than in 2019, according to the company’s annual filings.

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