Williams to Cut Jobs as Energy-Trading Business Slows
Williams Cos., the No. 2 U.S. natural-gas pipeline
company, will cut 16 percent of its energy marketing and trading workforce next
week because of a decline in that business, spokeswoman Paula Hall-Collins
said.
The company has about 800 trading and marketing staff
in Houston and its headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and less than 100 are
traders, Hall-Collins said. It also fired 11 traders, or 13 percent of its
trading staff, in London.
The market for energy trading is shrinking in the U.S.
amid regulatory probes of sham transactions and the demise of Enron Corp. Companies
such as Williams, El Paso Corp. and Aquila Inc. are reducing trading and
selling assets and securities to assure investors they won't collapse like
Enron.
``This is an necessary and a smart move,'' said
Fredric Russell, president of Fredric Russell Investment Management, which has
160,000 Williams shares in about $100 million under management. ``With so many
people who use energy traders concerned about the strength of Williams and
others, it's much more difficult to drum up business.''
Williams is reducing the cash and working capital for
its trading unit by a third. The company, which has about 12,000 employees,
plans to sell more than $1 billion in assets by year's end, including
refineries in Tennessee and Alaska, to raise cash and cut debt.
Shares of Williams fell 22 cents to $7.13. They have
dropped 72 percent this year.