No retrenchments, but salary cuts across the board - Petronas CEO

National oil company, Petroliam Nasional Bhd today has given assurance that there will be no reduction in the number of employees or retrenchments, although the group is in the midst of executing capital cost reduction measures to strengthen its resiliency.

However, president and group chief executive officer Tengku Muhammad Taufik Tengku Aziz said salary cuts would be undertaken across the board in light of the continued challenging market conditions, adding that the company is still deliberating on the actual amount.

"We have explored possible options (to reduce cost)...we also want to be a responsible management.

"We do not want to pursue the path of reduction or retrenchment. We will have to proceed and take shared pain as a workforce, but we are not in the position of having to do retrenchment," he told reporters after announcing the group's performance for the first half ended June 30, 2020 (H1 2020) here today.

Petronas recorded a 23 per cent year-on-year reduction in revenue for H1 2020 at RM93.6 billion, on the back of lower average realised price for all products and lower sales volume, mainly from processed gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG).

Tengku Muhammad Taufik said the outlook remains challenging and the group's 2020 performance would be severely affected by the low oil price and weak demand environment.

As such, the group plans to preserve more cash and maintain its liquidity via a 21 per cent reduction in capital cost and 12 per cent lower operating expenditure, targeted by year-end.