Australia's Woodside cuts jobs

Australian energy company Woodside Petroleum said Tuesday it was cutting several hundred jobs from its payroll in an effort to adjust to slumping oil prices.

"Woodside has completed a business review to address the impact of the downturn in the commodities market," a spokesperson said in a statement e-mailed to UPI. "The outcome is that about 300 roles will be made redundant."

Crude oil has traded in a bear market for close to a year, with the price for the global benchmark Brent down about half from its June 2014 highs. The price near $56 per barrel in early Tuesday trading is down about 9.5 percent from late February.

Woodside joins most of its peers in the energy sector with its layoff announcement. British energy company BP in January announced it would eliminate about 200 staff from its North Sea workforce in an effort to cut spending.

Woodside in its full-year 2014 statement, issued in February, said net profit after tax of $2.4 billion marked a 38 percent increase from the previous year and was the second highest in corporate history.

Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman at the time said, however, that "driving business efficiencies will remain our priority in the current challenging market conditions."

Full-year 2014 production of 95.1 million barrels of oil equivalent for Woodside was 9 percent above 2013 levels.