Shoreline Group, a Nigerian oil producer, has halted plans to issue $500m worth of Eurobonds and will sack 700 of its employees amid the sustained drop in global oil prices, the Chief Executive Officer of the firm, Mr. Kola Karim, has said.

Brent crude is now hovering below $30 per barrel and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is imposing restrictions on the amount of dollars businesses can obtain. The company plans to sack workers in order to survive the harsh conditions, the CEO told Bloomberg.

“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.

It is expected that more oil companies will look for cost cutting measures to survive this period of oil price lows relying more on downsizing as a means of cutting labour expenses.

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.

Bloomberg originally reported this story

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