Shell developed the first offshore platform for Malaysia and has made 11 offshore discoveries in the past 24 months.

Shell Malaysia to lay off 1,300

KUALA LUMPUR, September 29, 2015 – Shell subsidiary Shell Malaysia has announced plans to streamline its upstream operations, including laying off 1,300 workers from its upstream sector through 2017, to make the company more competitive.

“This is certainly a very difficult decision to make,” Shell Malaysia chairman Iain Lo said in a prepared statement. “We have made adjustments in our upstream portfolio and we will drive greater efficiency in our operations. Regretfully, these have resulted in an unavoidable impact on staff.”

The cuts will represent about a fifth of Shell Malaysia’s total workforce.

The layoffs follows its parent corporation’s decision to cease oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic for the foreseeable future. The decision to pull out of the area was influenced by a number of factors, including a failure to find significant reserves and a slump in oil prices.

Globally, Shell will cut its workforce by 6,500 people in 2015 in order to remain “resilient in today’s oil price environment,” the company had said in a July 30 statement.

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