Bumper three months for oil firm Halliburton
OIL services giant Halliburton beat Wall Street forecasts with its quarterly results yesterday, despite a $105m (£64.6m) revenue hit from international unrest and disruption.
Halliburton, which offers engineering, maintenance and equipment for oil firms, reported net income of $557m, excluding a $46m charge linked to sanctions in Libya.
Production revenue for the first three months of 2011 rose 62 per cent on last year to $3.2bn, with continued growth in unconventional oil sources such as shale gas and heavy oil more than making up for political issues in northern Africa and the ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Halliburton was a contractor on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers and caused environmental havoc when it exploded last April.
Drilling and evaluation revenue at Halliburton rose 17 per cent to $2.1bn, partly due to the start of work with Exxon in Iraq.
“Going forward, I feel even more confident about the prospects of our North America business in 2011 and beyond,” said chief executive Dave Lesar. “We believe there is upside for both revenue and margins as we respond to the continued increases in service intensity.”