Driller and Services Firm Beat the Street (NOV, DO)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 27, 8:31PM EDT · Published Apr 23, 8:57AM EDT

Two oilfield services players reported earnings this morning. National Oilwell Varco, Inc. (NYSE:NOV) and Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. (NYSE:DO) both beat expectations, but only Diamond is getting a boost this morning.

National reported EPS of $1.13 and revenue of $3.48 billion, compared with the average analysts’ EPS estimate of $1.06 on revenue of $3.29 billion. The company’s backlog on equipment orders fell from $11.1 billion at the end of the 2008 fourth quarter, to $9.6 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2009. That and the company’s statement that “market conditions remain very challenging, and the timing of a recovery is uncertain” are probably the 1-2 punch pushing the shares down about 5% in early trading.

Diamond also beat analysts’ estimates for the quarter, reporting EPS of $2.51 on revenues of $885.7 million for the first quarter of 2009. Expectations averaged EPS of $2.22 and revenues of $878.5 million. Diamond also declared a special cash dividend of $1.875/share this morning, in addition to its regular dividend of $0.125/share. The company included no specific information with its earnings release. Diamond’s shares are trading up more than 6% this morning, at $75.52. The stock’s 52-week range is $53.30- $147.77.

Paul Ausick
April 23, 2009

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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

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McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.