The New York-listed drilling contractorreported net income of $50m, versus a loss of $106m in the same period a yearprior.
Excluding a $221m impairment tied to thecompany’s recent investment in Archer and losses on derivatives, earnings fromcontinuous operations amounted to $0.55 per share, which was three cents lowerthan analysts’ consensus estimate.
Seadrill said operating revenues rose to$1.26bn from $1.04bn in the three months to 31 December 2012 and notedits fleet of floating rigs and jack-ups achieved utilisation levels of around 86%and 94%, respectively.
Management said they weren’t satisfiedwith the operational performance of the deepwater fleet in the fourth butcontinue to be optimistic on the long-term outlook in both the ultra-deepwaterand jack-up markets going forward.
Seadrill, which is backed by Norwegianshipping tycoon John Fredriksen, pointed out that ten rigs are due for deliverythis year alone and also used Thursday’s earnings release to shed light on aseries of contract extensions.
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