China’s biggest oil companies say they’ll cut costs, but not employees. As the collapse in crude prices curbs profits and prompts a wave of layoffs in the energy industry from Schlumberger Ltd. to Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chinese state energy giants say their employees are safe. The oil and gas industry has cut more than 176,000 jobs globally this year and more reductions are likely, according to Swift Worldwide Resources. While eschewing those layoffs may avoid a repeat of protests early last decade when China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. and PetroChina Co. fired tens of thousands of workers, it’s going to make further cost savings a challenge, said Gordon Kwan, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Nomura Holdings Inc. “It’s not easy to just remove thousands of people from their post,” Tian Miao, an analyst at North Square Blue Oak Ltd., a researcher, said by phone from Beijing. “Plus, what […]