Exxon Set to Slash Jobs at Pioneer Natural Resources by 20% | OilPrice.com

Exxon will reduce the headcount at Pioneer Natural Resources by some 397 over the next two years, reducing the number of employees by 20%.

The move follows Exxon’s megadeal for the acquisition of Pioneer, which had a final price tag of around $62 billion.

According to Bloomberg, most of the jobs to be axed are in Dallas and Midland, Exxon said in a notice submitted to the Texas Workforce Commission. “The success of this merger depends heavily on the retention of Pioneer’s talented workforce,” the supermajor wrote. “More than 1,900 Pioneer employees were offered jobs as part of the merger, with well over a majority accepting their offer of employment.”

Exxon said it would buy Pioneer Natural Resources late last year, signaling what turned out to be a wave of megadeals worth tens of billions that significantly reduced the number of large players in the U.S. shale field. The deal was approved by regulators earlier this year, on the condition of banning Scott Sheffield, Pioneer’s former chief executive, from joining the board of the new company.

The condition was based on allegations by the FTC that Sheffield was involved in an attempt to coordinate production cuts to lift oil prices, according to unnamed sources quoted by the Wall Street Journal. The allegations later spread to include other oil companies and spur an investigation into their practices, which sparked suspicions regulators wanted to put the brakes on the consolidation drive.

The deal with Pioneer is done, however, adding more than 1.4 million net acres to Exxon’s footprint in the Delaware Basin and the Midland Basin. Following the acquisition, the combined entity is poised for a substantial surge in production to as much as 1.3 million bpd. Looking ahead, Exxon anticipates further growth, with production forecast to reach an impressive 2 million bpd by 2027, underscoring the long-term strategic value of this acquisition.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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