By Santhosh V. Perumal/Business Reporter

Qatar Petroleum (QP) on Tuesday officially completed the “right-sizing” of its expatriate workforce as part of its reorganisation and said there are no more plans on the anvil.
Moreover, the country’s bellwether is exiting non-core business in order to encourage the private sector to flourish, QP president and chief executive Saad Sherida al-Kaabi told reporters in Doha.
“We are now in a down cycle in the industry and we need to be very efficient as an organisation. While we have no control over markets and prices, we do have control over our cost and expenditure,” he said, adding it will be premature to talk about the cost savings.
Asked whether the right sizing will be extended across the other oil and gas ventures, he said those entities will be reviewing their requirement based on the business needs and it was for the respective companies to take the call.
Asserting that none of the Qatari employees have been released due to the reorganisation, he said “we have right sized our organisation to be more dynamic and efficient and to be able to cope with our strategic needs in the new business environment.”
Regretting that it had to end the contracts of some employees; al-Kaabi said “this release was conducted in a very respectful and professional way as per their contracts and made sure that it came at a time that did not affect their children’s education.”
However, he did not disclose the number of expatriates being released and their nationality, saying it was a “sensitive” issue. QP has employees from 84 countries.
“We are not going to downsize any further and our restructuring has been completed,” he said, adding that in November 2014 itself the company had announced the intention to reorganise QP.
As part of the reorganisation, Qatar Petroleum International was integrated with the parent QP.
Stressing that the focus of QP will be on core business of oil and gas production, al-Kaabi said it will be exiting non-core businesses as these entities had become self reliant and should be able to compete in a competitive world.
“We will exit management of land allocation and management of Mesaieed industrial area that is allocated to private sectors, which will be handed over to a government entity,” he said, adding it will be announced at a later date.
Highlighting that exiting of non-core business should in no way be construed as not supporting those entities; he said QP will not compete in any way with the private sector.
“To the contrary, we want the private sector to be strong and grow to help the overall economy,” he added.
On the integration of QPI into QP, al-Kaabi said it meant that there is now one corporation that is in charge of oil and gas business domestically and internationally.
Asked about the need for restructuring, he said leading companies frequently reorganise to meet the requirements of the ever changing competitive environment and deliver on their new strategic objectives, which “is exactly what QP did”.