Energy Giant Schlumberger Fires Another 8,000 As “Market Conditions Worsened” In Q2

Last quarter, Paal Kibsgaard, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer the world’s largest oilfield services company, Schlumberger warned that “the decline in global activity and the rate of activity disruption reached unprecedented levels as the industry displayed clear signs of operating in a full-scale cash crisis. This environment is expected to continue deteriorating over the coming quarter given the magnitude and erratic nature of the disruptions in activity.” He then promptly fired 8,000 workers in the first quarter, and said that he is not expecting a meaningful recovery in the company’s activity until sometime next year.
He was right, because while the oil industry was touted as experiencing a substantial rebound since then, this appears to not have been the case for the energy services giant. This was confirmed in the results reported moments ago by Schlumberger which announced another unexpected loss or $2.16 billion, or $1.56 cents a share, compared with a profit of $1.12 billion, or 88 cents, a year earlier.
As Bloomberg notes, as the downturn dragged on, executives at the world’s largest oilfield services provider have had to push back their expectations for an improvement in drilling and fracking work, with crude prices remaining more than 50 percent lower than their peak in 2014.
As a result, the tone of Paal Kibsgaard this quarter was even gloomier than in Q1:

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jul 21, 2016.