Liquefied Natural Gas Limited announced staff reductions resulting in a more streamlined organisation having a lower, more sustainable fixed cost base.
These changes reflect a combination of redundancy and restructuring measures while keeping a strong focus on marketing of liquefaction capacity in our projects.
The change leads to a reduction of three employees and one consultant in Australia, one Indonesia-based employee, and six U.S.-based employees. Two additional U.S.-based employees were released from their employment in the last 45-days. In aggregate, the 13 people had salaries (inclusive of the consultant’s fees) of approximately A$4.2 million annually.
Included in the reduction is the release of Mr David Gardner from his role as Joint Company Secretary. Ms Kinga Doris will continue in her role as General Counsel and Company Secretary and the Company will announce arrangements to cover the duties of the Joint Company Secretary in due course. The Chairman of LNGL’s Board of Directors Richard Beresford thanked Mr Gardner for his 6 years of service to the Board.
LNGL’s Managing Director and CEO Greg Vesey said, “My 100-day review of the business highlighted the need to make some tough decisions. This is a great company, with a great history, and great potential. However, the LNG industry as a whole continues to be a difficult market, and it is apparent that we have to reduce overhead costs in certain areas.
Regrettably, these changes mean job losses at the executive level, in the corporate office, and in divisional offices. I thank all the impacted individuals for their service and support over the years.” In addition, Mr Vesey stated, “Our focus on offtake customers will not be impacted by the restructuring. We remain committed to our ‘Energy Link’ strategy and believe LNGL is
well positioned to deliver value to our shareholders.”
All affected employees will receive payments consistent with their individual employment agreements, and/or statutory requirements, and/or discretionary payments commonplace in local jurisdictional practice. These payments aggregate approximately A$2.0 million, of which approximately A$703,000 was paid prior to 30 June 2016. The affected individuals continue to hold 1.6 million Performance Rights pursuant to the terms of the Company's Incentive Rights Plan.