Transocean Ltd., the world’s largest offshore rig owner, posted earnings that exceeded expectations after cutting costs to confront declining demand for drillships.
Second-quarter profit of $1.11 per share, excluding certain items, was more than double the 51-cent average of 32 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Operating and maintenance expenses were lowered by 9 percent from the first quarter, to $985 million, the Vernier, Switzerland-based company said Wednesday.
Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Thigpen, 40, took office in April with the goal of turning around last year’s worst performer in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by reducing costs. He will have to make quick decisions on whether to scrap more rigs or swallow the cost of parking them. The company has the largest number of floating-rig contracts set to expire by the end of next year, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report.
“They executed for the drillships they still had working,” Rob Desai, an analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis who rates the shares a sell and owns none, said in a phone interview. “The real risk is just what happens in the future if they can’t sign contracts.”
The results were released after the close of regular trading. The shares, which have 2 buy, 12 hold and 26 sell ratings from analysts, jumped 6.1 percent to $13.09 at 6:05 p.m. in New York.
Even as cost cuts helped Transocean post better-than- expected results, profit and sales dropped from a year earlier as the company confronts a glut of new deep-water rigs and falling demand from producers battered by the collapse of oil prices.
Declining Profit
Second-quarter net income fell to $342 million, or 93 cents a share, from $587 million, or $1.61, a year earlier. Sales fell 19 percent to $1.88 billion.
“A major part of their business going forward is going to be the managing of costs for these stacked and idled rigs,” said J.B. Lowe, an analyst at Cowen & Co. in New York, who rates the shares the equivalent of a hold and owns none. “They have, not only the biggest fleet, they have the biggest fleet of stacked vessels.”
Deliveries of more than 60 new floating rigs booked through the end of 2018 will only worsen the outlook for the industry.
The operating and maintenance costs that Transocean reported for the quarter exclude $788 million in credits such as insurance proceeds and reimbursement of legal fees related to the 2010 Macondo disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, where a rig operated by the company sank.