NORTH Sea workers are expected to bear the brunt of an oil company's decision to axe up to 160 job in the latest blow to hit the industry.

Oil giant Petrofac announced the move on the day that the price of a barrel of Brent Crude fell to just over $31, a level it has not seen since April 2004.

The continuing falls in the price of oil have already seen more than 5,500 posts axed in Aberdeen over the past year.

Now Petrofac has become the latest firm to announce redundancies after announcing an earlier consultation following changes to its shift pattern on BP assets in the North Sea.

The company, which employs 1,900 people across the UK including hundreds in Scotland, said the move would make the company more competitive in the faces of the challenges affecting the industry.

It is planning on integrating its services into a single business, but has not made clear where the bulk of the jobs will be lost. A consultation with the workforce is expected to end later this month.

Petrofac said in October it would be consulting over jobs as a result of shift pattern change on BP assets in the North Sea.

It has also suffered huge losses totalling more than £330m on a contract to build a gas terminal on Shetland, where the company says it has been plagued by low productivity and bad weather.

The terminal will process gas from Totals’s giant Laggan Tormore field off Shetland, and is one of the biggest field developments in UK waters in recent years.

While Petrofac was delighted to win the £510m contract to build the terminal in 2010, the company has seen the timetable for completion of the project slip and costs spiral.

In April Petrofac’s chief executive Ayman Asfari said the Jersey-incorporated company had paid dearly for its lack of experience of running such a project in a wholly new geography.

He said labour costs incurred on the project were much higher and productivity much lower than the company was used to. Petrofac had 2,000 people working on the terminal at peak times including contractors.

The company started life with just 25 members of staff. Today it employs more than 20,000 staff, operating out of 31 offices worldwide.

A Petrofac spokesman said: "We're constantly looking for ways to make our business as cost efficient and delivery-focused as possible.

"Integration of our UK services will deliver a streamlined and effective business which is designed to ensure we remain competitive and sustainable against a challenging industry backdrop.

"We're making every effort to minimise the impact on our 1,900 UK employees.

"Under our current proposals the positions potentially at risk represent less than 10 per cent of our entire UK population and will be spread across our operating centres."

At least 65,000 people, including 5,500 posts in Aberdeenshire, have lost their jobs since the value a barrel of oil halved from a high of $110 in June 2014. Last week, industry body Oil and Gas UK predicted UK production had risen by 7 per cent over the course of 2015.

But despite forecasting the first rise in production in 15 years, experts warned further industry cuts are likely.

A recent survey by Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce found that nine out of ten of the oil and gas firms in the North Sea expect more job losses, and that almost two thirds of respondents said they had cut posts over the past year.

Confidence in the oil and gas industry was said to be at its at the lowest level seen since the survey began in 2004.

One in four businesses have said they expect an increase in decommissioning work over the next five years

Meanwhile, finance firm Morgan Stanley said the price of a barrel of Brent Crude may drop to as low as $20, given the surge in the US dollar.

In a report, its analysts said: "Given the continued US dollar appreciation, $20-$25 oil price scenarios are possible simply due to currency. The US dollar and non-fundamental factors continue to drive oil prices.”