Halliburton Year-on-Year Loss Down in Q4
US completion services giant Halliburton reported a Q4 2020 net loss of $235mn on January 19, sequentially higher than its $17mn loss in Q3 but a significant improvement over its Q4 2019 loss of $1.65bn, when it took impairments and writedowns totalling nearly $2.2bn.
Adjusted net income – excluding severance and other charges – increased sequentially in Q4 to $160mn from $100mn but declined year-on-year from $285mn in Q4 2019. The company took an operating loss of $96mn in Q4 against operating income of $142mn in the previous quarter.
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Adjusted operating income, excluding impairments and other charges, slipped to $1.4bn for all of 2020 from $2.1bn in 2019.
“I am optimistic about the activity momentum I see in North America and expect international activity to bottom in the first quarter of this year,” Halliburton CEO Jeff Miller said. “I am also encouraged by the growing pipeline of international customer opportunities and the unfolding global activity recovery.”
As the global upstream industry began to recover from Covid-19 lockdowns, completion and production revenues in Q4 increased sequentially to $1.8bn from $1.6bn, reflecting increased activity across multiple product lines in North America, increased stimulation activity in Argentina and Kuwait and increased tool sales and well intervention activity elsewhere.
Also in the fourth quarter, Halliburton successfully deployed the pressure pumping industry’s first electric-powered fracking operation for Cimarex Energy. From several pads in the Permian basin, nearly 340 stages have been completed across several wells using e-drive frac pumps drawing from electric grids.
The e-drive equipment is designed to utilise maximum power potential from local grids, providing pumping performance that is 30-40% higher than with conventional equipment.