Schlumberger Q2 Profit Tops Expectations

reported upbeat earnings for its second quarter on Thursday. The Paris, France-based company posted quarterly net earnings of $1.12 billion, or $0.88 per share, compared to $1.6 billion, or $1.21 per share, in the year-ago period. Excluding non-recurring items, the company earned $0.88 per share. Its revenue dropped 25 percent to $9.01 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.79 per share on revenue of $8.97 billion. The average estimate among 33 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.82 per share and revenue of $9.34 billion. North America revenue came in at $2.4 billion in the quarter, while revenue for the International Areas totaled $6.5 billion. Reservoir Characterization Group revenue tumbled 25 percent year-over-year to $2.4 billion, while Drilling Group revenue slipped 25 percent to $3.5 billion. Production Group revenue dropped 26 percent year-over-year to $3.1 billion in the latest quarter. During the quarter, the company repurchased 5.8 million shares for $520 million. Schlumberger Chairman and CEO Paal Kibsgaard said, "We remain very confident in our capacity to continue to weather the current downturn better than our surroundings, and better than in previous downturns. Our global strength, our technology differentiation, and our accelerated corporate transformation are creating a great platform for us to increase revenue market share, deliver lower reductions in earnings per share than our peers, and continue to reduce working capital and capex intensity while generating higher levels of free cash flow." Schlumberger shares gained 1.44 percent to $85.10 in the after-hours trading session.