CALGARY — Enbridge Inc. says 800 employees have voluntarily left the company, allowing it to avoid layoffs as it cuts costs to counter impacts from COVID-19 and lower global oil prices.
The Calgary-based pipeline company announced in May it would defer $1 billion in capital spending this year and reduce costs by $300 million through measures including salary cuts and voluntary staff reductions.
Spokesman Jesse Semko confirmed that 800 staff have taken up options including early retirement, severance, educational or personal leaves of absence or part-time work.
The reductions would amount to about seven per cent of the 11,300 employees Enbridge listed at the end of last year, with about 7,800 in Canada and 3,500 in the U.S.
The company is also reducing base pay across its non-union workforce, cutting director and CEO pay by 15 per cent and executive vice-presidents’ pay by 10 per cent.
Enbridge in May reported a $1.43-billion first-quarter net loss which included an impairment of $1.74 billion on its investment in Denver-based DCP Midstream, which cut its dividend by 50 per cent in March due to pandemic effects.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2020.
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VANCOUVER — Coastal GasLink says it is ready to launch its summer construction program in British Columbia, which will see the first section of pipe buried in the ground next month.
The company says in a statement that construction also begins this summer on a compressor and metering stations that will form anchor points along the 670-kilometre pipeline running from the Dawson Creek area to Kitimat.
Work on the main compressor station is slated to begin in July and the company says activity on the entire project will gradually ramp up in the following months.
It expects to reach a peak in September, with a workforce of more than 2,500.
Opposition by the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation to construction of the pipeline through their traditional territory set off demonstrations and blockades that shut down large parts of the national economy in February.
When complete, Coastal GasLink says its pipeline will deliver at least 2.1-billion cubic feet of natural gas everyday to a LNG Canada liquefied natural gas facility being built in Kitimat.
Contempt of court charges were dropped this month against 22 members of the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters who were arrested in northwestern B.C. during protests against the pipeline.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2020
The Canadian Press