Halliburton Co., which is selling assets to win approval for its $34.6 billion takeover of Baker Hughes Inc., beats analysts’ estimates while reporting a first-quarter loss that came as the result of drilling cutbacks.
Halliburton reported a loss of $643 million, or 76 cents a share, after posting a profit of $622 million, or 73 cents a share, a year earlier, the Houston-based company said in a statement Monday. Sales at the world’s second-biggest provider of oilfield services dropped 4.1 percent to $7.05 billion.
Excluding certain items, the company earned 49 cents a share in the first quarter, beating the 36-cent average of 32 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Shares rose 1.3 percent to $47.50 at 7:07 a.m.
Halliburton’s exploration and production customers are expected to cut spending by as much as 35 percent in the US if oil prices average $60 a barrel, according to Cowen & Co. A rout that has seen crude fall about 50 percent since June has led well operators to seek cost concessions of more than 30 percent for oil services, according to Evercore ISI.
“The pricing knife fight continues,” James West, an analyst at Evercore in New York, wrote in an April 14 note to investors. “Operators have been racing to cut pricing in an effort to minimize production costs as low commodity prices have rendered many plays uneconomical.”
Prices for West Texas Intermediate, the North American benchmark crude, have fallen 48 percent since peaking in June and settled at $55.74 a barrel on Friday.
Halliburton in November agreed to buy Baker Hughes, the third-biggest oil services provider, to gain technology and a larger footprint globally. Both companies compete with Schlumberger Limited for work that includes hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the drilling technique that has triggered a boom in US production.
Halliburton and Baker Hughes are planning to sell overlapping business lines to win approval from the US Justice Department for the purchase. The combined company will be a little more than half the size of Schlumberger. Halliburton expects the deal to close by year end.
“First-quarter earnings results are going to be difficult, especially for those companies leveraged to North America,” West wrote. “The speed and severity of the downturn continues to outpace consensus expectations.”
Baker Hughes will release first-quarter results on Tuesday before the start of regular trading in New York.
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