Oilfield services firm Hunting to cut jobs, realign units

(Adds comments from finance director, updates share movement)

By Abhiram Nandakumar

Feb 16 (Reuters) - Oil and gas services and engineering company Hunting Plc (LSE: HTG.L - news) said it would cut an unspecified number of jobs and realign its business units to help counter a drop in drilling activity.

Hunting's shares fell as much as 12.6 percent on the London Stock Exchange on Monday morning.

The company makes equipment for the oil and gas industry as well as providing services for drilling, completing and maintaining wells. It has about 4,000 employees, about 60 percent of whom are in the United States.

Hunting said it expected most of the impact of weak oil prices to show up from the second quarter of 2015 and that its well completion and well construction businesses would be most affected by reduced demand.

London-based Hunting's biggest customer is Halliburton Co , which has announced plans to lay off more than 6,000 workers globally in response to a sharp drop in oil prices.

The number of active oil rigs in the United States, which accounted for about 60 percent of Hunting's revenue in 2013, fell last week to its lowest since August 2011.

Finance Director Peter Rose said he could not provide details on the job cuts.

"At the moment ... we don't know," he told Reuters.

He also declined to provide detail on projected cost savings or the company's plans to realign its business units.

Deutsche Bank (LSE: 0H7D.L - news) analysts remained relatively upbeat about the company's prospects.

"While not directly quantified in the statement, we expect these actions, along with the company's robust balance sheet ... to be supportive through the downturn, also putting the company on the front foot when the market does eventually start to recover," the analysts said in a note.

Hunting's shares were down 9.2 percent at 450.4 pence at 1109 GMT. (Reporting by Abhiram Nandakumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier and Ted Kerr)