Sorry to hear that the North Sea guys might also get this crap. Quite a few Global Ops crew are at home on a 3 month unpaid layoff pending posting or retrenchment depending on circumstances.
It seems to be a cost cutting move where they get to back you into a corner by forcing you to look for work while you are "still employed" by them meaning when you do find a means of income you automatically have to resign thus saving them the expense of a redundancy package of some sort.