⁍ LyondellBasell Industries said on Tuesday that it plans to cut salaried staff at its Houston oil refinery.

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⁍ The company confirmed the contents of an email seen by Reuters, in which executive vice president Torkel Rhenman said Lyondell wants ‘a reduction of approximately 10% of the refinery population’
Refiners have posted large losses this year as air and road travel have cratered amid widespread lockdowns and work-from-home policies to combat the coronavirus.

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– The H1N1 virus wasn’t the only thing causing major trouble at US refineries. Reuters reports chemical company LyondellBasell Industries plans to cut 10% of its salaried staff at its Houston oil refinery. The company says it wants “a reduction of approximately 10% of the refinery population” because of losses caused by the H1N1 virus, which has hit air travel hard and forced people to work from home. “Given the drop in demand and increase in industry refining capacity, we anticipate the outlook for the refinery will remain challenging for the next several years,” Refinery Manager Greg Nevermann wrote in a letter to employees. Lyondell employs about 800 workers at its Houston refinery. The planned job cuts would not apply to refinery workers covered by a union contract, which prohibits layoffs. In a letter to employees, Refinery Manager Greg Nevermann said that before imposing involuntary layoffs the company would offer enhanced retirement packages to eligible employees and offer reassignments to the chemical maker’s other locations. Lyondell’s cost-cutting, including cutting travel and outside consultants and deferring non-safety-related maintenance, has not succeeded in reducing losses, he wrote. In July, Lyondell said the refinery lost $107 million in the first six months of this year before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. During the same period of 2019 it posted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization for the refining business of $81 million.