So much for FLUSH IN MONEY: 2/3/10 from Reuters - Enerplus Resources Fund (ERF_u.TO) said on Wednesday it has cut 7 percent of its staff as it transforms itself to develop holdings in Pennsylvania\'s Marcellus shales and the Bakken oil region of Western Canada and the United States.
Enerplus, the No. 4 Canadian energy trust, said 65 employees were laid off on Tuesday to boost productivity, with most of the affected jobs in the trust\'s Calgary and Denver offices.
Gord Kerr, Enerplus\'s chief executive, said the cuts will save the trust money, but the key reason for the layoffs is that the trust is investing in new fields to boost growth in advance of a government-mandated switch to corporate status from trust status next year.
\"It is in concert with the direction that Enerplus is going in,\" Kerr said. \"We\'re getting into resource plays at an earlier stage and are trading out skill sets.\"
Enerplus is developing its unconventional oil and gas holdings, boosting spending on its lands in the massive Marcellus shales of Pennsylvania and the Bakken oil region in Saskatchewan, Montana and North Dakota, while selling off holdings that fall outside its new focus.
Enerplus bought into the Marcellus play last August, acquiring an interest in lands held by a private firm containing a resource estimated at 2.1 trillion cubic feet of gas.
The company launched the trust model -- in which companies are spared corporate taxes provided they distribute the bulk of their cash to investors -- in 1986.