Halliburton Profit Grows as U.S. Fracking Surges

(Bloomberg) Halliburton Co. (HAL), the world’s largest provider of hydraulic fracturing services, said fourth-quarter profit rose as customers boosted spending on the technique for capturing oil in the U.S.

Net income rose to $906 million, or 98 cents a share, from $605 million, or 66 cents, a year earlier, Houston-based Halliburton said in a statement today on Business Wire. The company was expected to earn 99 cents a share, the average of 15 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Halliburton helps companies drill for oil and natural gas, including using fracking, which blasts water mixed with sand and chemicals underground to free trapped hydrocarbons from shale formations. Oil and gas producers boosted spending last year on fracking services 63 percent to $31 billion, according to Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Spears & Associates Inc.

“There was very limited weather impact” in the U.S. and Canada, Alan Laws, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets in Denver, who rates the shares a buy and owns none, said in a telephone interview before the earnings were released. “It looks like they may have had extraordinary conditions that allowed for more work to get done.” ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-23/halliburton-profit-grows-as-u-s-fracking-surges.html