OneSubsea: 600 jobs at risk at Leeds engineering firm

Up to 600 jobs are under threat at an oil and gas engineering firm in West Yorkshire.

Staff at OneSubsea have been told it was considering stopping manufacturing at their Leeds factory in 2017.

It blamed the "most severe downturn of the past 30 years" in the oil and gas industry, with "operators significantly reducing their investment".

OneSubsea has 929 staff in Leeds. Some will remain at its site on Queen Street, Stourton, under the proposals.

In a statement, it said a drop in orders meant many of its plants were "underutilized".

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The firm, whose parent company is oilfield services giant Schlumberger, said it would hold a 45-day consultation period on the plans.

A spokesperson said: "This is only a proposal at this stage and we will be conducting consultation with the unions and employee representatives and make every effort to try and mitigate as much as possible the impact on our employees."

The union Unite said the news had come "out of the blue".

Regional officer Chris Daly said: "We knew that there was a downturn in the oil price, but we had no inkling about the scale of such job losses.

"Unite's goal in the days and weeks ahead is to make the case to mitigate the job losses envisaged and offer our members the maximum support at this difficult and worrying time."

In the past year, Schlumberger has announced thousands of worldwide job losses amid a plunge in oil prices.

Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds Central, said: "It's a terrible blow, not just to OneSubsea, its workers and families, but it's also a blow to manufacturing.

"That's why I'm calling on the government to look at what it might be able to do to support the UK oil and gas industry."

"There's still oil and gas out there, but the low oil price means a lot of companies have said it's too expensive at the moment for us to go and find it," the Labour MP added.

According to its website, OneSubsea creates "integrated solutions, products, systems and services for the subsea oil and gas market".