Will Nobody Weep for Halliburton?

Posted by Jill Hussein C., Brilliant at Breakfast at 6:44 AM on July 22, 2008.

High oil prices mean record sales for the company paying Dick Cheney's pension, but spinning off KBR means lower profit:

Halliburton Co., the world's second- largest oilfield-services provider, said net income dropped 67 percent after the sale of the company's stake in engineering unit KBR inflated 2007 earnings.

Second-quarter profit fell to $507 million, or 55 cents a share, from $1.53 billion, or $1.62, a year earlier, Houston- based Halliburton said today in a statement. Excluding such items as the KBR gain, a legal settlement and a failed takeover bid, per-share profit rose to 68 cents from 63 cents, matching the average of 22 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Halliburton jettisoned KBR last year, tightening its focus on oilfield work as surging crude prices spurred demand for exploration and production services. The company opened a Middle East headquarters in Dubai and added technology centers in Russia and Asia to expand its presence overseas, where services providers are benefiting as producers ratchet up oil spending.

They needed these record sales in order to offset their numbers from spinning off KBR in 2007. Now Halliburton can focus on profiting off of oil speculation, and leave KBR to focus on its new core competency of electrocuting American soldiers in Iraq and providing them with tainted water, looking the other way while their employees rape their co-workers, using its influence to make sure anyone in government who questions their bilking of the government is fired, and building internment camps here at home for indefinite detention solely on the president's say-so.

Tagged as: halliburton, kbr, war-profiteering