Petrom slashes jobs

Romania”s largest company, Petrom, which was recently taken over by Austrian company OMV, is planning lay off a lot of its staff in the exploration and production and filling station sectors, sources close to the company told Ziarul Financiar. Representatives of the petroleum company have presented their development plans for Petrom until 2008 to analysts and investors, just as OMV and other petroleum companies are already doing. Petrom has a total staff of 50,000. Of these, 27,000 work in exploration and production, while 13,000 work in the company”s filling station business. In order to reduce the number of people employed by its petrol station network, Petrom is planning to externalise some of its employees by changing the fuel distribution system from the “the company owns and operates the station” system to the so-called “the company owns, the dealer operates” system. This solution has already been used by OMV and other operators in the West. “Without large investment in exploration and production, and replacing the pumping system and automation, this cannot be achieved (the employee cutbacks in the exploration and production sectors i.e.). As for the filling stations, the outsourcing and the closing of some storage facilities and stations could be a solution,” the chairman of Petrom”s Federation of Free Independent Unions, Liviu Luca told Ziarul Financiar.