REPORT: Halliburton is cutting up to 6,500 jobs

Halliburton announced Tuesday that it will lay off between 5,000 and 6,500 employees, according to the Houston Business Journal.

These cuts come as tumbling oil and gas prices have caused its output to decline. The company had announced last December that it was laying off 1,000 employees.

"We value every employee we have, but unfortunately we are faced with the difficult reality that reductions are necessary to work through this challenging market environment," a Halliburton spokeswoman told the Houston Business Journal.

Shares of Halliburton fell as much as 2.8% in trading on Tuesday afternoon.

West Texas Intermediate crude prices moved back towards $50 a barrel, down as much as 5%, while Brent fell as much as 3% to $57.39.

And even after technically entering a bull market last week, Citi said yesterday that oil prices could plunge as low as $20 per barrel.

Halliburton is slashing 8% of its workforce, the latest in a wave of job cuts that is sweeping through the energy sector. Oilfield services company Schlumberger announced last month that it was cutting 9,000 jobs, or about 8% of its workforce. Baker Hughes also announced that it expects to layoff thousands of people.

Up to 38% (20,193) of the 53,041 job cuts in January were in the energy industry, Bloomberg reported.