CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Charleston-based oil and natural gas company has eliminated 67 jobs because of the continued low price for natural gas.
Energy Corporation of America (ECA), which has operations in several states, significantly cut its budget last year, but that wasn’t enough, company president Kyle Mork said.
“The energy industry has endured a difficult price environment for more than 12 months. While ECA enacted significant cost-cutting measures in 2015 in the hope that we would be able to avoid this action, we have found that is simply not possible in the persistently-low-price environment,” Mork said in a statement obtained by MetroNews Friday.
Of the 67 positions eliminated, 16 were done so by attrition, the remaining 51 workers learned of the decision Thursday. There are 28 job cuts in West Virginia impacting workers in Kanawha, Gilmer and Upshur counties.
ECA also closed some of its offices, Mork said.
“I want to be clear that any office closures will not impact additional employees,” his statement said.
Those workers who had their jobs eliminated have been offered a severance package and job search assistance.
“This was a tough, but necessary, decision for ECA to reduce expenses and ultimately maintain the company’s financial stability and competitiveness moving forward,” Mork said.