India's Reliance Cuts Pay of Oil & Gas Division's Execs

Aditya Kalra and Alexandra Ulmer
Thursday, April 30, 2020

India's Reliance Industries has cut the pay of some top oil-and-gas division employees by up to 50%, according to six sources and a letter seen by Reuters, as it battles lower profitability because of the coronavirus epidemic.

Reliance, headed by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has decided that employees earning more than 1.5 million rupees ($20,000) a year will face a 10% salary cut, while the cuts will be 30% to 50% for senior executives, the sources said.

The pay cuts, first reported by Reuters, were cited in a company note to employees dated April 29 and reviewed by Reuters on Thursday.

"The hydrocarbons business has been adversely impacted due to reduction in demand for refined products and petrochemicals ... the situation demands that we maintain razor-sharp focus on operating costs and fixed costs and all of us need to contribute to make this happen," Executive Director Hital R. Meswani said in the letter.

"Our Chairman has agreed to forgo his entire compensation," he added, referring to Ambani.

A spokesman for Reliance did not immediately respond to calls or an emailed request for comment. The company is due to announce its quarterly results later on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear whether other Reliance divisions were affected, but three of the sources said that the company's telecom unit, Reliance Jio Infocomm, did not appear to have been impacted as of Thursday.

Reliance this week also said it would consider its first rights issue in almost 30 years, part of its broader commitment to eliminating net debt by March 2021. Reliance's outstanding debt was about $43 billion at the end of last year.

India's crude processing in March fell 5.7% from a year earlier, its biggest drop since September, as the coronavirus crisis and travel restrictions to curb it hit demand for fuel and forced refineries to cut output.

While Reliance has raised crude processing at its domestic- markets-focussed plant by about 6% it had cut oil refining at its export-focused plant by 24% in March, from the same month last year.

Facebook this month revealed plans to spend $5.7 billion to buy a 9.99% stake in Reliance's digital arm. 

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Alexandra Ulmer; editing by David Evans Additional reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Editing by Euan Rocha, Robert Birsel)

Categories: Energy Industry News Activity

Related Stories

Inpex Kicks Off FEED Work for Abadi LNG Scheme Offshore Indonesia

BP, ONGC, Reliance Industries Ink Deal for Offshore Exploration in India

Pandion Energy Divests Interests in Three Norwegian Assets to Inpex

China Starts Production at Major Oil Field in Bohai Sea

EnQuest Picks Up Offshore Oil and Gas Block in Brunei

Seatrium Makes First Turnkey FPSO Delivery to Petrobras

KBR-SOCAR Joint Venture Secures Work for BP in Azerbaijan

Baker Hughes, Petronas Team Up for Asia-Pacific Energy Resilience

Four Jack-Up Drilling Rig Deals Set to Bring In $129M for Borr Drilling

Centrica and Thailand’s PTT Ink Long-Term LNG Supply Deal

Current News

Inpex Kicks Off FEED Work for Abadi LNG Scheme Offshore Indonesia

ADNOC Signs Long-Term LNG Deal with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation

Sapura Energy Rebrands to Vantris Energy

BP, ONGC, Reliance Industries Ink Deal for Offshore Exploration in India

Allseas-Boskalis Consortium Bags $1.4B Offshore Gas Pipeline Job in Taiwan

CNOOC Brings New Offshore Gas Field On Stream

Yinson, PTSC Get $600M Contract for Vietnam-Bound FSO

PTTEP Buys Chevron's Hess Unit Share of Southeast Asia’s Offshore Block for $450M

Valeura Energy, PTTEP Partner Up on Gulf of Thailand Blocks

Sapura Scoops Over $118M for Chevron, PTTEP Subsea Ops off Thailand

Subscribe for AOG Digital E‑News

AOG Digital E-News is the subsea industry's largest circulation and most authoritative ENews Service, delivered to your Email three times per week

https://accounts.newwavemedia.com