Shoreline Group, a Nigerian owned upstream oil producer is reported to be planning to sack about 700 of its employees.
The company led by business mogul Kola Kareem, has also halted plans to issue $500m worth of Eurobonds. According to Bloomberg, the CEO had blamed its decision on the current price of crude oil which is now below its projections of $60 per barrel.
“We went on a roadshow and the world of oil collapsed. We’re going to wait until the end of the first quarter and see how stable the markets are. Mid-last year, our projections were $60 oil for the next five years,” Karim said.
Source: Bloomberg
Shoreline is one of several local businesses that bought fields in the oil-rich Niger Delta region after foreign companies, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Total SA and Eni SpA, sold onshore assets.
The company is thought to be indebted to a some local Nigerian banks.
Bloomberg originally reported this story