Aberdeen-based oil services company Plexus Holdings (www.plexusplc.com) has cut its workforce by around 50% and reduced salaries due to the downturn in the North Sea sector. The exploration-well engineering specialist has completed two rounds of job cuts since September.

Announcing a £3.5 million loss for the six months to 31 March, the company said: “An initial cost-saving exercise was conducted during September. This resulted in 19 redundancies across the business, along with other fundamental changes such as the cessation of shift working and over-time.

Since then, continued falls in the oil price led to Plexus embarking on a more significant cost-saving exercise that resulted in about 50 more redundancies, coupled with salary cuts for the remaining staff.” This has left Plexus with a staff of around 84 in Aberdeen.

The company said that its revenues fell by around 50% to £6.7 million in the six months to 31 March, from £13.5 million a year earlier. It added that “investment by North Sea businesses is expected to fall by almost 90%, with fewer exploration wells anticipated than at any time since data started being collected in the late 1970s.”

However, chief executive Ben van Bilderbeek said the company is confident that the downturn is cyclical. He noted that the demand for energy is forecast to rise strongly over the next few decades as a result of growth in emerging economies, and that “fossil fuels will be required to satisfy the lion’s share of this growth”.

Plexus has been reducing its reliance on the North Sea by winning business in countries such as Malaysia. It also won an £8 million investment from Jereh of China in July of last year.