Low oil price forces Shell to close Glasgow office

Major job cuts likely from oil giant’s ‘difficult choices’

Around 380 jobs are at risk after Royal Dutch Shell said it would shut its Glasgow operation in response to the low oil price.

Shell’s finance operation will close in the city by the first three months of 2018, as the firm looks to cut costs in the face of a 50% drop in Brent crude prices from their peak in June 2014.

Shell, which employs 12,000 people globally, said it would relocate some positions to its other international centres but the number had not been decided.

A spokesman said the company was taking “difficult choices” in order to “remain competitive”.

The move was driven by “increasing pressures on our business to reduce cost and generate cash”.

He said the operations in Glasgow could be carried at other centres across the globe “but at a significantly lower cost”.

“Subject to employee consultation, we are proposing to close the Shell finance operations office in Glasgow and over the next 15 months move its activities to our other locations in our global Shell Business Operations network,” he said.

“This will result in a small overall reduction in the number of jobs in Shell’s global finance operations.

Employees based in the Glasgow office will likely face involuntary severance.

“We are making this announcement following a review of Shell’s global finance operations global network which concluded that we have an opportunity to further consolidate that network into fewer locations.”

Staff were told about the closure of the Boswell Street office yesterday, triggering the start of a 45-day consultation period.