NEW YORK — Halliburton Co. said Wednesday its firstquarter profit increased 22.7 percent as the oil industry aggressively searched for new oil fields in North America.
The Houston-based oil services firm reported net income of $627 million, or 68 cents per share, for the first three months of the year. That compares with $511 million, or 56 cents per share, for the same part of 2011.
Revenue increased by 30 percent to $6.87 billion.
Revenue in North America was a record $4.17 billion.
Excluding a $300 million charge for estimated losses related to its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Halliburton said it earned 88 cents per share.
The results topped analyst expectations for earnings of 85 cents per share on revenue of $6.79 billion, according to FactSet.
Halliburton provides a variety of services for the oil industry. It helps evaluate how much oil and gas can be pumped from a well, for example, andit sells drill bits and specialized pressure pumping services that unlock oil and natural gas from underground rock.
It’s the first big company in the oil sector to report first-quarter earnings.
Halliburton provided cementing services for BP PLC on the failed Macondo well in 2010. The two sides continue to spar over responsibility for the disaster. The British oil company expects to pay more than $37 billion to cover damages and other costs, and said Halliburton should pay a share of that.
BP has collected several billion dollars from minority owners and other contractors associated with the well. Halliburton maintains that BP, as the well’s owner, is responsible for the blowout that created the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
Halliburton said the $300 million charge taken in the first quarter represents “probable losses related to the incident that can reasonably be estimated at this time.”
Meanwhile, company rev-enues soared as the petroleum industry searched for more oil in the United States.
The industry had been mostly focused on natural gas production in the U.S. But as prices dropped, the companieshave shifted to drill for higherpriced oil, primarily in west Texas and North Dakota. The shift put a number of natural gas projects on hold for Halliburton, but the company said it was mostly paid back by increased business in oil fields.
The number of rigs operating in oil fields increased 12 percent in the quarter, compared with a 17-percent drop in natural gas rigs, the company said.
“While the total rig count only declined one percent, the shift to natural gas from oil was dramatic and disruptive to operations,” Halliburton Chief Executive Officer Dave Lesar told analysts and investors Wednesday during a conference call. The negative effects from the transition will lessen in the second half of this year, he said.
Halliburton shares rose $1.51, or 4.6 percent, to close at $34.17.
Information for this article was contributed by David Wethe of Bloomberg News.
Business, Pages 25 on 04/19/2012