UK-based Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD) has announced the loss of 70 to 80 jobs across the business.
The company blamed difficult market decisions across a number of sectors including offshore renewables but said it is in the process of looking at “cost-saving measures” to reduce the total number of redundancies.
A major factor in the job losses was the news that SMD’s largest order in history for two suites of cable laying and burial equipment has been suspended due to the rejection of an export license as a result of current sanctions in place for Russia.
SMD said it will appeal the decision and said the outcome will have a “significant impact on the final redundancy numbers”.
A spokesman said that despite “successfully diversifying the business” it is suffering “extremely challenging market conditions” in areas in which the company is operating.
A “significant reduction in UK-based contractors within the offshore renewable market” has also been a factor, SMD said.
It added the decline in demand from the oil and gas market, driven by the prolonged reduction in the oil price has caused many projects to be shelved until at least 2016.
A spokesman said: “Long term prospects for SMD remain very good. Our parent company, CRRC of China continues to support the business during these challenging times with a number of key investments in SMD for 2016 having been recently approved.”
SMD chief executive Andrew Hodgson said: “We are very disappointed to be in this situation given the inevitable impact on our colleagues and partners in our supply chain.”
Image: Carbon Trust