Summit Natural Gas of Maine is cutting 21 jobs, mostly from its Augusta office, as it adjusts to the Maine market, the company announced Friday.
The company said it is “adjusting its workforce” to better meet the needs of Maine consumers and provide gas in the state.
In an interview Friday, company spokeswoman Lizzy Reinholt said that Summit’s workforce would be reduced from 80 to 59.
In a news release earlier, Kurt Adams, CEO and president of Summit Utilities Inc., said: “Summit is committed to providing access to clean-burning, affordable natural gas to our customers in Maine and increasing the number of families and businesses we serve.
As a result, we continue to adjust our workforce as our experience throughout the state grows and market conditions change.”
The company is cutting 13 positions and another eight are being laid off from its gas conversion affiliate.
All but four of the cut positions were in the company’s Augusta office, and many were sales jobs, Reinholt said. All affected workers will be offered severance pay, she said.
In August, the company said it was reducing its planned build-up in the Kennebec Valley and parts of Cumberland County, partly because of reduced demand for natural gas conversions because of the low price of home heating oil.
Reinholt said Friday that a number of factors went into Summit’s decision to cut its workforce. The company is getting to know the Maine market better and thinks it can reduce the number of employees it has and still grow.
“This is really just a reorganization and readjustment,” Reinholt said. The layoffs are permanent, but the company would like to rehire employees in the future, she said.
In 2013, Summit started construction of a main transmission pipeline from Pittston to Madison.
Since then, it has installed 214 miles of distribution pipeline in communities in the Kennebec Valley and Portland suburbs of Falmouth, Cumberland and Yarmouth.
But the company said in August that fewer customers than expected were converting to natural gas because of the sharp drop in oil prices. At the time, crude oil was slightly less than $42 a barrel, but it has continued to drop and closed at $32.88 a barrel Friday.
The company has had to deal with setbacks and problems with regulators and contractors.
In 2015, it was required to inspect and replace faulty equipment on transmission and residential distribution lines that had been installed incorrectly by contractors and might still face fines from the Maine Public Utilities Commission.
In its news release Friday, the company said it intended to grow its network and invest in Maine despite the recent workforce reduction.
It plans to install 90,000 feet, or about 17 miles, of distribution pipe in 2016, the company said.
“Natural gas is a safe, affordable and environmentally friendly heating source for Maine consumers,” Adams said in the release.
“We continue to invest in Maine and will do everything we can to support our employees and look forward to the day when we can put them back to work.”
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