Oil and Gas

Frank’s International slashes 100 more jobs

by Leslie Turk

October announcement follows several hundred job losses in late March.

Frank’s International, which was founded in Lafayette and still has its domestic headquarters here, confirmed on Oct. 20 that it is laying off an additional 100 employees, though — once again — the company did not say how its Lafayette operations would be affected.

The cuts come only months after a late March announcement that the 77-year-old oilfield services company would lay off 400 to 600 workers and subsequent confirmation in May it was eliminating another 150 jobs because of declining oil prices and falling rig counts. The company, which is headquartered in Houston, employed more than 4,500 workers worldwide at that time.

Earlier in March, Frank’s also announced its purchase of Lafayette-based Timco.

“Similar to other companies in the oil and gas industry, Frank’s International continues to be impacted by low energy prices and activity levels. Throughout 2015, Frank’s has been developing and implementing cost savings opportunities while continuing to focus on our long-term strategic plan,” Caroline Mansur, director of communications and external affairs, says in an emailed response to ABiz about the October cuts. “In association with these cost savings opportunities and as part of our performance improvement plan, we announced [Oct. 20] a workforce reduction of approximately 100 employees. These reductions were in multiple areas and functions where we are experiencing the sharpest decline in activity levels.”

Frank’s is among the largest global providers of highly engineered tubular services to the oil and gas industry, offering its services to exploration and production companies working offshore and onshore. The company’s niche is complex and technically demanding wells.

That work is closely tied to oil prices, which have lost more than half their value since mid-2014.

In the October statement, the company said it would discuss the cuts and more of its future plans in its 3Q earnings call, scheduled for Nov. 3 at 10 a.m. The company’s common stock is traded on the NYSE under the symbol “FI.”

Gary Luquette

Frank's International President and CEO Gary Luquette will be in Lafayette next week. On Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 1 p.m., the Abbeville native and former Chevron top exec will deliver the keynote address at the 2015 Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition in Room A of the Cajundome Convention Center. His address is titled “Surviving and Prospering in a Difficult Market.” For more on LAGCOE's speakers, click here.

LAGCOE is Oct. 27-29 at the Cajundome and adjoining Convention Center.