Energy

Nabors Warns, Weatherford Sells Pipelines: Trouble Brewing in Oil

Drilling Rig
Source: Thinkstock
The oilfield services business had a good 2013, with shares of the three big players all gaining more than a third. Smaller firms posted a more mixed performance, but growth was solid. That does not mean there aren’t a few problems.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NYSE: NBR), which posted 2013 growth of around 21%, warned Monday morning that first-quarter earnings will fall below estimates. The consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters is for earnings per share of $0.21, and Nabors now says the negative impact will be approximately $0.07 per share.

The decline is attributed to a shortfall in the firm’s well completion services business. The unusually cold weather has caused delays in customers’ well completion activity. The company’s CEO said:

Approximately 60% of our pressure pumping horsepower operates in the Northern region, which includes basins in the Rocky Mountains and Appalachia. Severe winter weather in those areas continued to affect our pumping operations through February and into early March, though to a lesser degree than in January. The weather has also impacted many northern based frac sand mines, tightening availability, and could further impact our results. Our other operations appear to be in-line to favorable compared to expectations.

Nabors expects its near-term and longer-term outlooks to remain unchanged. The consensus estimates for second-quarter and full-year EPS are $0.22 and $1.16, respectively.

Weatherford International Ltd. (NYSE: WFT) saw its shares rise 46% in 2013, but growth so far in 2014 has been stunted, currently running at about 8%. The company announced Monday morning that it is selling its pipeline and specialty services business to a subsidiary of Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) for a total of approximately $250 million.

Weatherford announced in January that it would fire 7,000 employees and divest non-core assets as it tries to grow its business, make its cost base more efficient and reduce debt. The sale of the pipeline business is the first asset sale under the company’s announced plan.

Shares of Nabors were down about 2% in premarket trading Monday morning, at $23.10 in a 52-week range of $14.34 to $24.03.

Weatherford shares were down about 0.2%, at $16.74 in a 52-week range of $11.35 to $17.53.

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