Seadrill Profit Disappoints on Unexpected Downtime

Lately, in the deepwater drilling market, there always seems to be something going wrong. An oil spill, upgrades to equipment, and now delays due to bolts on blowout preventers. These added costs caused driller Seadrill to post results that fell short of expectations.

Revenue was still strong, growing 15% from a year ago to $1.22 billion. That was also ahead of the $1.11 billion analysts expected. But additional costs led to net income of just $50 million, or $0.04 per share, which was well below the $0.58 analysts expected.

The added cost and downtime was the result of corroding General Electric connectors used in blowout preventers at the bottom of the sea floor. The company had significant downtime, resulting in 86% utilization rate in the floater segment during the quarter.

This challenge should continue throughout the drilling industry. We know that Transoceansaid it has 55 of the GE connectors and Diamond Offshore has 30. I expect that Noble will also have significant downtime given it uses similar equipment to Transocean and Seadrill.

Hope for the future
For Seadrill, the hope is that new rigs will turn a small profit into big gains for shareholders. The company will take delivery of 10 new rigs this year, and eight more during 2014-2015. In total, the company has 22 rigs under construction, highlighted by seven ultra-deepwater drillships and two ultra-deepwater semi-submersibles. With dayrates averaging near $600,000 per day, these new rigs should add to the bottom line immediately.

The short-term blip in earnings is notable, but a lot of the downtime is a one-time occurrence, something that always seems to be the case. Given the upside potential with newbuilds coming online this year, I still think Seadrill is a great pick in drilling. It just needs to pick up performance, something that will be its focus in months to come.

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The article Seadrill Profit Disappoints on Unexpected Downtime originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Travis Hoium owns shares of Seadrill. You can follow Travis on Twitter at @FlushDrawFool, check out his personal stock holdings or follow his CAPS picks at TMFFlushDraw. The Motley Fool recommends Seadrill. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric Company, Seadrill, and Transocean. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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