Around 25 people coordinated the reshuffling of 13,000 employees, now part of a new unit at Petrom after the takeover of oil activities from Petromservice.
The step is logical, despite the two companies' having been separated for over six years, and will cut Petrom's annual costs by 20%.
Petromservice was separated from Petrom in 2002 as part of a plan to reorganise the company before privatisation.
In 2004, Austria's OMV took over the majority stake in the biggest Romanian company, and last year remerged oil activities of Petromservice with Petrom in a 328.5m-euro deal.
After years of extensive restructuring at Petrom, the company is taking part in a new wave of reorganisation, imposed by the need to boost the efficiency of the most important business segment, E&P.
"(...) A team of around 13,000 people has resulted, with almost 9,800 being new employees from Petromservice. Of these, 1,200 operators will be transferred to E&P starting in May, with EPS (E&P Services) to be the main services provider," explains Gugu Siegfried, head of the E&P Services department.
He says employee integration may be finalised as late as at the end of 2008. Most people now joining the company are in fact former Petrom employees, which makes the transition from one company to another much easier.
"We're looking at a double change. It was not just people moving from one company to another, but also from one department to another. The major advantage of this deal was that for many of them coming back to Petrom was like coming home (...)," says Petrom representative.
According to him, the integration process was quite smooth, while the number of people who decided to leave Petrom stood below 100.
One of the main reasons behind the deal was to cut down exploration and production costs. On top of this, the tighter control of an activity that is absolutely necessary for Petrom is added. In terms of costs, the deal will slash production costs by around 20%.
"(...) It's hard for us to assess the immediate impact over the company's overall profitability, but we can say this will be a positive one during the long term," says Siefried.
After takeover, employees were distributed in three units: Interventions and Drilling Works, Maintenance and Logistics.
Siegfried says there is no intention at present to turn the recent acquisition into a services provider for other companies on the market or for the unit to provide these services for the entire OMV group.
"In the next three years, we'll invest 90m euros, particularly in the modernisation of equipment in the three operating areas, and to boost the overall quality of work," Siegfried adds.
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