Rigamortis for Halliburton

The banks may be in the Q1 happy club, but that’s not so much the case for oil firms, and specifically the oil services firms, which this time last year happened to be the talk of the markets (see chart below).

Oh, how things change. Halliburton, the second-largest oilfield-services provider, on Monday announced a 35 per cent fall in its Q1 profits on a decline in exploration and production spending linked to the fall in global oil prices.

In all, net income at the company dropped to $378m, or 42 cents a share, from $580m, or 63 cents, a year earlier. Consolidated revenue in the first quarter, meanwhile, was $3.9bn, down 3 per cent from the first quarter of 2008.