Neste Oil's shipping subsidiary, Neste Shipping Oy, is to start an efficiency improvement program aimed at improving its profitability and securing the continuity of its operations. Improved profitability will be essential to enabling Neste Shipping to make the major statutory environmental investments that will be required between 2014 and 2017, deal with rising costs, and handle other projects and investments needed to secure the continuity of the company's operations into the future. 
As part of the efficiency improvement program, statutory employer-employee negotiations will be started that could result in a maximum of 130 people being made redundant. Negotiations will cover all of Neste Shipping's land- and sea-based personnel in Finland, around 450 people in total. The goal of the efficiency improvement program is to make the business profitable by increasing revenue and reducing costs by a total of around EUR 15 million annually. 
"Neste Shipping's financial position and profitability have been clearly below the levels we have expected for some time," says Arvo Ruotsalainen, Neste Shipping's Managing Director. "Freight rates have been low and costs have risen. We do not see any fundamental change for the better taking place over the next few years and it is impossible to achieve a sufficient level of improvement in our performance using the current operating model. That is why we are now looking for new solutions through statutory employer-employee negotiations to secure the future continuity of the business." 
 

-- Source from Neste Oil Corporation