Oil major Shell is planning to cut at least 20% of jobs in its deals team, in an effort to reduce costs, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Staff in the division, which has several hundred employees handling mergers and acquisitions for Shell, were told that there would be a significant reduction in headcount, with further details to be communicated in April, the report said.

"Shell aims to create more value with less emissions by focusing on performance, discipline and simplification across the business," a spokesperson for the company said.

"Achieving those reductions will require portfolio high grading, new efficiencies and a leaner overall organisation."

Shell CEO Wael Sawan, who took the helm in January last year, has vowed to revamp the company's strategy to focus on higher-margin projects, steady oil output and grow natural gas production.

The company had said in October it would let go around 15% of the workforce at its low-carbon solutions division and scale back its hydrogen business as part of the CEO's drive to boost profits. (Reporting by Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)