Gulfport Energy Cuts Jobs, Suspends Share Buybacks

U.S. shale and gas producer Gulfport Energy Corporation has cut staff and suspended its share repurchase program in efforts to cut costs, the company announced Monday.

The Oklahoma City-based independent, which has operations in the Utica shale in Ohio and SCOOP play in Oklahoma, also said that two of its board members – Craig Groeschel and Scott Streller – will step down from the board by year-end.

“Gulfport’s Board and management team are committed to taking timely and decisive action to build long-term sustainable value for all shareholders,” CEO David Wood, said in a company statement. “To that end, following discussions with our large shareholders and other stakeholders, we decided that accretive repurchases of our unsecured notes at discount represent an attractive allocation of our capital in the current market environment. We have also been taking a hard look at how to be more efficient across all areas of our business and as part of this effort recently reduced our staffing levels.”

Gulfport cited current market conditions and a weak near-term gas price outlook as reasons for suspension of the company’s share repurchase program. Additionally, Gulfport recently completed a workforce reduction, accounting for about 13 percent of its headcount.

Gulfport had nearly $2.1 billion in long-term debt, according to its third quarter 2019 earnings statement.

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