BP details job losses

Cuts to avoid front line staff

The rate of planned job losses at BP is to increase because of dropping oil prices, the oil firm has said.

The job losses will affect both BP's 15,000 employees in the UK and its 84,000 people worldwide.

BP embarked on a large divestment programme after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, selling off around £25.6bn of the business.

BP said: "We have sold about a third of the business but we are still set up for being that bigger company that we used to be."

The company clarified today that the job losses would be in the "head office and back office, not the front line operations". Parts of the business in line to be slimmed down include the legal, procurement and HR departments, it said.

The company added that the job cuts would make the business more efficient, but they had not been triggered by the fall in oil prices.

BP said: "It's certainly added more focus to the simplification that is going ahead but it certainly hasn't been triggered by that. It's added to the importance of getting the simplification right."

There is no target number for the job cuts or geographical target area, BP said. More details of the company's strategy were likely to be discussed at an upstream analysts meeting in London on Wednesday.

BP's third quarter replacement cost profits, reported in October, were £1.5bn, down from £2bn in the same period last year.