SLB Schlumberger Ltd

By Austen Hufford 

Schlumberger Ltd. posted a loss in its latest quarter on lower revenue, but the company said energy prices and production were both poised to increase.

Schlumberger and other companies in the oil-field-services sector have been hurt by weak demand from oil and natural gas producers for services such as drilling and completing oil-and-gas wells due to a two-year decline in energy prices. During 2016, though, energy prices rose and then stabilized.

Chief Executive Paal Kibsgaard said he expects a tightening of the oil supply will balance with demand, supporting further price increases and more exploration and production investment by its customers. Mr. Kibsgaard said the company was once again pursuing growth and improving returns instead of cost-cutting and workforce reductions that it had done for nine quarters.

Schlumberger said Friday that it took a $536 million restructuring charge as it refined and reduced its support structure to reflect lower activity and current pricing levels. The company also took $139 million in charges relating to its $12.7 billion purchase of rival Cameron International Corp. and a currency devaluation in Egypt.

Shares fell 1.3% to $86.07 in premarket trading.

In all, Schlumberger reported a fourth-quarter loss of $204 million, or 15 cents a share, compared with a loss of $1.02 billion, or 81 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items such as acquisition-related charges, adjusted per-share earnings were 27 cents.

Revenue declined 8.2% to $7.11 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected adjusted per-share profit of 27 cents and revenue of $7.07 billion.

For the year, Schlumberger expects $2.2 billion in capital expenditures, compared with $2.1 billion last year.

In its production unit, its largest, revenue fell 17% to $2.18 billion. In its reservoir-characterization unit, revenue fell 23% to $1.7 billion, and in its drilling unit revenue fell 32% to $2.01 billion.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 20, 2017 08:01 ET (13:01 GMT)

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