Rosneft has already started to lower its head count as a result of a hiring freeze in place since October, company vice president Peter O'Brien said.
"The greatest reductions in terms of percentage could happen in refineries," he said.
Rosneft, the first of Russia's oil majors to report fourth-quarter results, reported a drop in net income to $775 million as crude oil prices fell.
"We have a cost-reduction program, and it involves some optimization," said Alexei Bogdanchikov, Rosneft's head of investor relations. "Up to several thousand people may be involved."
Rosneft expects capital expenditure this year to be approximately the same as 2008 in ruble terms and potentially less in dollars, O'Brien said.
Capital expenditure at the Moscow-based producer amounted to $8.73 billion in 2008, the company said.
"In the upstream, we expect unit costs to be up, in ruble terms, by approximately 10 percent," O'Brien said. "The full driver generating those costs is electricity costs."
Refining costs are expected to be little changed this year from 2008 as natural attrition keeps wages down, he said.
No firm targets have been set for job losses, which could be implemented through natural attrition rather than redundancies, Bogdanchikov later said in a telephone interview. The number "could also be zero," depending on Rosneft's performance, he said.
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