Malaysian oilfield services provider SapuraKencana has reportedly decided to lay off more than 4,000 employees in an effort to reduce costs in a low oil price environment.

According to Nikkei Asian Review, an Asia-focused English-language publication, the Malaysian company will cut a third of its workforce that counts over 13,000 employees under a restructuring campaign that is effective starting June 1, 2016.

The news website stated that the company’s president and CEO, Shahril Shamsuddin, addressed the employees explaining the rationale behind the decision in a town hall meeting on Friday in Kuala Lumpur.

“Difficult decisions need to be made, and I ask for your patience,” the news website quoted Shahril Shamsuddin as saying. “This new structure will allow us to be more integrated, efficient and to focus on our resources.”

In March 2016, the company posted its first quarterly loss in five years.

The company’s CEO said at the time that the group would continue to manage the industry pressures through aggressive implementation of its initiatives to reset costs to match the low oil price environment.

He said this would involve strategic initiatives in the optimisation of the company’s supply chain and improvements to the company’s operational and organisational efficiency.

Reuters reported in March, quoting an industry source, that there would be no layoffs within SapuraKencana, “for now”.

At the end of March, SapuraKencana GE Oil & Gas Services (SKGE), a joint venture between SapuraKencana Services and GE Power Systems, was awarded a long-term service agreement by Petronas to provide maintenance services for its two forthcoming floating LNG vessels.

Elsewhere, GE Oil & Gas and SapuraKencana Well Services teamed up to deliver light well intervention services in order to unlock previously uneconomic subsea intervention activity.