By Justin Scheck 

LONDON-- BP PLC Chief Executive Bob Dudley told staff in a Monday memo that the company would freeze 2015 base pay, part of a larger round of cost savings and cuts the company has undertaken as oil prices remain at less than half the level of mid-2014, a BP spokesman said.

"We see this as a prudent response to the currently challenging market environment in which BP operates," the spokesman said.

Oil companies big and small are struggling with costs amid the sharp drop in oil prices. But BP had been selling assets and pushing to rein in outlays since before prices started to weaken in the middle of last year. Since selling more than $40 billion in assets after its 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP has significantly reduced its oil-and-gas production.

The company more recently said it was embarking on staffing cuts in such places as the U.K.'s North Sea, and considering other measures to bring down spending.

BP said in December it expects to book restructuring charges of about $1 billion between the end of 2014 and through 2015, and said the company could reduce capital expenditures this year by up to $2 billion, after having initially planned to spend at least $24 billion.

Write to Justin Scheck at justin.scheck@wsj.com

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires