Halliburton Earnings Fall

Boy, those folks at Halliburton sure must miss having their old boss, Dick Cheney, and his boss, George W. Bush, in charge.

Those were the good old days. Profits rolling in. No-bid contracts in Iraq. Now that former Halliburton CEO Cheney’s off the stage, the company’s having a tough time keeping up.

Of course, Halliburton’s earnings don’t really have anything to do with the departure of Cheney and Bush, fun as it might be for some to look at it that way. They have a lot more to do with the falling price of oil in the past year.

The oilfield-services company reported a 61 percent drop in profit for the third quarter and tied the drop to the fall in oil prices. But it still beat Wall Street’s expectations.

Income fell to $262 million, or 29 cents a share, from $672 million, or 74 cents, in the third quarter last year. Analysts had expected the company to come in at 26 cents a share. At the same time, oil futures averaged $68.24 a barrel during this year’s third quarter, a 42 percent drop from the year before.

For Halliburton to make money, folks need to be pumping oil and natural gas, and there wasn’t as much activity in that sector in the last quarter, with both commodities being cheaper.

Active oil and natural gas rigs in the U.S. fell 51 percent from a year earlier.

Halliburton responded to the falling demand by cutting 5,000 jobs, mostly in North America, from January through the second quarter, and it froze salaries and cut executive pay. It took a $19 million charge against earnings tied to the job cuts.