THOUSANDS of Scottish oil and gas workers are facing further uncertainty after the world's biggest oilfield services business announced it plans to cut 11,000 jobs around the world.
Schlumberger had previously revealed it would trim its global workforce by 9,000 but said the downturn in oil exploration activity, amid ongoing low prices, has forced it to look for further reductions.
Around 100 jobs were lost in Scotland earlier this year as part of the initial cuts.
The business employs 5,000 people in the UK with 3,000 of those working in and around Aberdeen.
Jake Molloy, regional organiser at the RMT union, said it was too early to tell what impact the latest round of cuts might have in Scotland.
He said: "It has not really filtered down to [the people] here in Aberdeen yet.
"I think it is a further example of the difficult time we are facing for the sector."
Hundreds of jobs have been cut in the UK oil and gas industry in recent months as companies react to a much changed operating environment.
Industry giants such as Shell, BP and Chevron have all shed hundreds of workers.
Schlumberger, which has its headquarters in Texas in the United States, was refusing to release any details on where the axe might fall in its latest round of cuts.
It said: "As a result of the continuing weakness in the upstream oil and gas industry, Schlumberger is reducing its global workforce by approximately 11,000 employees.
"The abruptness of the fall in exploration and production activity has made sound management of our resources challenging-including the difficult decision to further reduce the size of our exceptional workforce.
"As we announced at the end of 2014, reductions are part of our continual effort to match resources with demand worldwide."
The company confirmed it would not release any specific reduction details for any geographic region.
The job cuts were part of Schlumberger's results for the first quarter of this year which showed a 19 per cent dip in revenue to $10.2 billion from the $12.6bn posted in the final three months of 2014.
Pre-tax operating income slipped 28 per cent quarter-on-quarter from $2.78bn to just short of $2bn.
North American revenue was down by 25 per cent to $3.2bn with international turnover off 16 per cent to $6.9bn.
The company said around 75 per cent of the overall decline was related to lower activity levels and pricing with the remainder a result of currency fluctuations and non-recurring contracts.
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