Halliburtons income rises as U.S. drilling increases
Halliburton Co., the world’s second-largest oilfield-services company, said third-quarter profit rose 22 percent on increased U.S. natural-gas drilling.
Net income rose to $611 million, or 58 cents a share, from $499 million, or 48 cents, a year earlier, the Houston-based company said in a statement Sunday. Halliburton was expected to earn 54 cents, the average estimate from 23 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Revenue was up 19 percent to $5.8 billion.
“The services companies are posting really good numbers right now,” said James Halloran, who helps manage $33 billion at National City Private Client Group in Cleveland, including 31,000 Halliburton shares. Energy companies have “enough money to spend that they’re looking through the cycle and aren’t going to cut back.”
Profit from servicing oil and gas producers rose 60 percent from the year-earlier quarter to $906 million, a seventh-straight quarterly record, the firm said.
Profit at its KBR unit fell 30 percent to $98 million during the third quarter of this year. The unit designs and builds large energy projects like refineries and is the largest U.S. military contractor in Iraq.
The KBR subsidiary has drawn criticism from Democrats in the U.S. Congress who claim it won contracts to service troops in Iraq through ties to Vice President Dick Cheney, Halliburton CEO from 1995 to 2000.
The U.S. Army has said it will open Halliburton’s contracts to competitive bidding in November.
Profit from KBR’s business of designing and building refineries, chemical plants and liquefied natural gas terminals was $45 million, compared with a $10 million loss a year ago.
Chief Executive Officer David Lesar, describing KBR as a drag on the company’s share price, has announced plans to spin off the unit to shareholders by late April and may sell almost 20 percent in an initial public offering. The share offering has been in question since Lesar said in July that the IPO market was too weak to proceed.
Weatherford profit up
Weatherford International Ltd., the fourth-largest U.S. oil field-services company by market value, said third-quarter profit more than quadrupled on increased spending on exploration for oil and natural gas.
Net income rose to $234 million, or 66 cents a share, from $47.9 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier, the Houston-based company said in a statement today. Revenue rose 57 percent to $1.7 billion from $1.08 billion.
