Venoco Lays Off 10 Percent of Workforce

Last week, Venoco Inc. laid off a number of administrative positions, and the oil company — which has offices in Carpinteria and Denver, and runs offshore operations in the Santa Barbara Channel as well as onshore wells in Beverly Hills and elsewhere — cited the shift away from Monterey shale exploration (whose promise as a resource-laden formation via fracking has yet to come true) as one reason why.

Spokesperson Lisa Rivas was one of the approximately 10 percent laid off of the company’s 200 or so employees, so the company’s Steve Greig issued a statement explaining that Venoco is concentrating focus on its three largest fields, which triggered a review of current staffing. “Based on that review,” he explained, “we determined that a limited number of primarily administrative positions could be consolidated or eliminated. The employees of Venoco represent an extraordinarily talented group of individuals and it was difficult to say goodbye to any of them. However, we believed it was necessary to make some changes in order to better match our employee base with our current, smaller asset base.”