Schlumberger misses 1st-quarter profit forecasts

Schlumberger NV shares slid lower in after-hours trading Thursday after the company posted worse-than-expected results, hurt by the massive drop in energy prices.

The company, with bases in Paris, Houston, London and The Hague, Netherlands, reported first-quarter net income of $501 million, or 40 cents per share.

The results did not meet Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 41 cents per share.

The world’s largest oilfield services company posted revenue of $6.52 billion in the period, which matched Street forecasts. North American revenue fell 55 percent and international revenue dropped 28 percent from the same period in 2015.

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A year ago, the company earned $975 million, or 76 cents per share, on total revenue of $10.25 billion.

Chairman and CEO Paal Kibsgaard said the decline in drilling activity “reached unprecedented levels as the industry displayed clear signs of operating in a full-scale cash crisis.”

Kibsgaard said his company is dealing with a decline in activity, pressure to cut prices, and job cancelations.

Schlumberger shares have increased 15 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index has climbed slightly more than 2 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Thursday, shares hit $80.27, a decline of 12 percent in the last 12 months.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SLB at http://www.zacks.com/ap/SLB

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