CALGARY C TransCanada Corp. said Thursday more layoffs are expected as the energy sector grapples with plunging oil prices, after confirming it let go 10 % of workforce in the fourth quarter.
The Calgary-based pipeline company let go staff in November, but did not provide numbers until Thursday’s earnings call to discuss fourth-quarter results. Chief financial officer Don Marchand said the layoffs cut more heavily into management positions, including vice-president and director positions.
“I wouldn’t say we’re done at this point,” Marchand said, adding the company continues to search for more duplication across its business.
Financial disclosure documents filed through the company Thursday show that TransCanada employs 500 fewer people now than it did last year. The organization employed 5,512 employees at the end of December, in contrast to 6,059 employees at the end of 2014.
TransCanada posted a $2.5 billion net loss in the final quarter, thanks in large part to a $2.9-billion impairment charge on its rejected Keystone XL pipeline.
“We were extremely disappointed through the arbitrary and unjust denial of the Keystone XL pipeline,” TransCanada president and CEO Russ Girling said on the company’s earnings call.
U.S. The president formally rejected his company’s application for any permit to build the pipeline project between Alberta and the U.S. Gulf Coast in the fourth quarter.
In response, TransCanada initiated a $15 billion claim underneath the North American Free Trade Agreement and launched a lawsuit over the legality of the rejection in Texas.
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“TransCanada will look for the way to make that project happen at some stage in the future,” Girling said, adding that oil producers continue to require the line’s capacity.
Despite the big impairment charge, the organization was able to increase its quarterly dividend by 18 cents, or nine percent, to 56.5 cents per share.
Girling said the organization is positioned to increase its dividend by eight to 10 % each year until 2020.
TransCanada also confirmed it’s on pace to create $13-billion price of projects into service by 2018, and is working on $45 billion in additional, larger scale projects over the longer term.
Girling also addressed the Canadian government’s decision to judge the company’s Energy East project’s contribution to the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions and said he believes the work it’s still in service by 2020.
Among another large-scale projects, TransCanada said it is continuing to operate on its Coastal Gas Link and Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Line projects, which may deliver gas to proposed liquefied natural gas facilities in B.C.
To date, the organization has spent $300 million and $400 million pushing both of those projects through Canada’s regulatory process.
In a research note, FirstEnergy Capital Corp. analyst Steven Paget said TransCanada’s outcome was in line with expectations, and posted adjusted earnings per share of 64 cents, compared with consensus expectations of 61 cents.
Girling said the organization is scheming to make the business’s earnings and financial performance even more predictable.
