Schlumberger Ltd.'s (SLB) second-quarter earnings jumped 33% from a year ago, driven mainly by high drilling activity in the onshore U.S. and recovery around the world, as oil demand recovered from last year's economic downturn.

Schlumberger--the largest oil field service company by market capitalization and sales--reported a profit of $818 million, or 68 cents a share, up from $613 million, or 51 cents a share, a year earlier. That period included 17 cents in charges. The company's earnings were in line with analysts' expectations. Revenue increased 7.4% to $5.94 billion.

Schlumberger's results echoed the trend of other oil field-services providers such as Halliburton Co. (HAL) and Weatherford International Ltd. (WFT). They said earlier this week that strong natural-gas drilling in the onshore U.S. has offset a slowdown of demand in the Gulf, where a temporary deepwater drilling moratorium was ordered by the federal government following a massive oil spill that halted exploratory drilling.

Global oil field-services providers such as Schlumberger, which support oil companies by providing services including project management and information technology, have benefitted from a rush of energy companies to tap unconventional oil and natural-gas reserves onshore U.S. by using special techniques such as horizontal drilling, said Phil Weiss, analyst at Argus Research. In North America, Schlumberger's earnings soared as revenue jumped 36%.

Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Gould said the global recovery in oil demand has been "reasonably robust" and he expects worldwide oil exploration and production to slowly continue improving. The company's outlook for natural gas, however, remains challenging as supply of both liquefied natural gas and unconventional gas in the U.S. would continue to overshadow the recovery of demand, he said.

"Overall, therefore, we see the current trend of a slow but sure recovery in activity as likely to continue," Gould said.

Schlumberger expects to see drilling activity slowly increase in most of its markets. The company isn't planning for any resumption of drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico this year but doesn't expect any delays or reductions elsewhere as a result of the ongoing deepwater-drilling moratorium.

"We believe that the contribution of deepwater discoveries has been, and will remain, very significant to future hydrocarbon production," Gould told analysts in a conference call. "We therefore welcome the current efforts to better understand and control the risks associated with these types of operations."

The company, which derives a small percentage of its revenue from the Gulf, doesn't expect the moratorium to be extended.

Schlumberger's shares recently traded 5% lower at $58.30.

-By Isabel Ordonez, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-2094; isabel.ordonez@dowjones.com

(Tess Stynes contributed to this story)
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