By Esha Vaish and Aashika Jain
April 28 (Reuters) - Amec Foster Wheeler Plc andPetrofac Ltd on Tuesday joined a growing list ofLondon-listed oil and gas support services companies planning tocut jobs in response to the tumble in oil prices.
Benchmark Brent crude oil prices have nearly halvedin the first quarter, prompting large production and explorationfirms to slash their spending budgets by an average 10-15percent and renegotiate contracts with the service providers.
Amec, which employs 40,000 people, said it was inconsultation with 149 Aberdeen-based employees and that about 64roles could potentially be affected. The company's clientsinclude Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp.
Petrofac was in talks to cut around 100 offshore jobs and upto 100 more onshore could be affected, a company spokesman said.The company, which employs 20,000 people, did not specify thelocation of the job cuts.
A day earlier, smaller peer John Wood Group Plc, theAberdeen-based company whose customers include BP Plc,said it was in consultation with 380 PSN unit employees, orabout a fifth of its onshore UK workforce for the unit, and that80 jobs could be lost.
Britain's North Sea is one of the most expensive explorationareas in the world and has seen oil majors cut hundreds of jobs.The region employs over 400,000 people.
To help the battered industry, Britain announced last montha series of oil tax cuts and the creation of an investmentallowance to revive oil production that has fallen to the lowestlevel since fields started pumping fossil fuels in themid-1970s.
Companies with exposure to the United States have also beenhit and have taken a number of initiatives, ranging from wagefreezes to restructuring.
Weir Group Plc, a maker of valves and pumps, andHunting Plc, which provides well maintenance equipment,have over the past year announced a number of measures.
Weir said in February that it would let go of around 650people, or about 22 percent of its North American workforce inits oil and gas division and also said it would consolidate fivesmaller manufacturing facilities to save cash.
Hunting has slashed about 20 percent jobs since thebeginning of the year. (Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)