Well solutions provider Halliburton Co. has recognized an impact from a data breach last August to its lower-than-expected third quarter earnings.
“We experienced a $0.02 per share impact to our adjusted earnings from lost or delayed revenue due to the August cybersecurity event and storms in the Gulf of Mexico”, chair, president and chief executive Jeff Miller said in a company statement.
Adjusted net profit — net income excluding tax adjustments, impairments and other charges, by the company’s definition — was $641 million, or $0.73 per diluted share. That missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate, which averages brokerage analysts’ projections, of 79 cents.
The income statement included “a pre-tax charge of $116 million in the third quarter of 2024 as a result of severance costs, an impairment of assets held for sale, expenses related to a cybersecurity incident, a gain on an equity investment, and other items”.
On August 21 the Houston, Texas-based reported an unauthorized access “to certain of its systems” and said it had enlisted external support for remediation.
“The Company’s response efforts included proactively taking certain systems offline to help protect them and notifying law enforcement”, it said in a regulatory disclosure then.
Later on August 30, Halliburton told the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, “The incident has caused disruptions and limitation of access to portions of the Company’s business applications supporting aspects of the Company’s operations and corporate functions”.
“The Company believes the unauthorized third party accessed and exfiltrated information from the Company’s systems”, it added. “The Company is evaluating the nature and scope of the information, and what notifications are required.
“The Company has incurred, and may continue to incur, certain expenses related to its response to this incident”.
However, Halliburton said at the time the financial impact would not be “material”.
For the July–September quarter, it reported $571 million in net earnings, or $0.65 per diluted share, compared to $709 million, or $0.8 per diluted share, for the second quarter this year. The decrease was partially due to lower activity for Halliburton’s product service lines in the Gulf of Mexico, induced by hurricanes Francine and Helene, as well as weaker demand for onshore pumping services in the U.S.
These declines in North American operations were offset by higher artificial lift activity on U.S. land and stimulation activity in Canada and the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile Latin America saw lower stimulation activity, while demand for testing services dropped in Mexico and the Caribbean and wireline activity softened in Argentina. “Partially offsetting these decreases were increased drilling-related services in Mexico and Brazil and improved project management activity in Ecuador”, the company said in its online report.
For Europe Halliburton reported a decline in drilling-related services in the North Sea, though the area saw higher cementing and pipeline services.
In Asia it saw higher Saudi demand for pressure pumping services and completion tools, though drilling services declined in the kingdom. The region generated higher wireline activity.
Third quarter revenue totaled $5.7 billion, compared to $5.8 billion for the prior three-month period. Operating income also dipped sequentially to $871 million from $1 billion. Operating income adjusted for impairments and other charges stood at $987 million.
Share buybacks fell from $250 million in the second quarter to $200 million. Paid dividends for the third quarter stood at $0.17 per share.