Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lower oil price environment, Maersk Drilling revealed plans on April 24 to adapt its offshore crew pool.

In light of the current commercial outlook, Maersk Drilling intends to stack a number of the company’s North Sea rigs. As a consequence, Maersk Drilling proposes to reduce the offshore crew pool and has now taken steps to initiate consultations with trade unions and employee representatives about redundancies in the company’s offshore crew pool in Denmark, Norway and the U.K.

“Though it’s standard practice in our industry to adjust our workforce to activity levels, it never feels right to say goodbye to good colleagues, especially when so many have walked the extra mile to keep operations running in these very difficult circumstances. However, it’s our responsibility to safeguard our business and we are now taking steps to maintain competitiveness in the challenging market environment,” Jørn Madsen, Maersk CEO, said.

Maersk Drilling expects that the consultations will lead to a total of 250 to 300 redundancies in the North Sea crew pool. The individual consultation processes will follow varying timelines in compliance with local regulations in Denmark, Norway and the U.K.

Offshore