Boston, MA 05\/12\/2014 (wallstreetpr) \u2013 Offshore drilling contractor Transocean LTD (NYSE:RIG)<\/b> announced strong financial results for the first quarter driven by higher revenues as well as increased rate of efficiency despite a fall in fleet utilization level. This translated into the company delivering adjusted earnings per share way above the market expectations triggering fresh interest in the stock.<\/p>\n
1Q Results<\/b><\/p>\n
Transocean LTD (NYSE:RIG) earned a profit of $456 million, 42% higher than $321 million and earnings per share surged 40% to $1.25 from $0.88 in the year-ago quarter. On an adjusted basis, after excluding charges and gains, net profit from continuing operations jumped 52% to $520 million or $1.43 a share from $342 million or 94 cents a share in the year-ago quarter. Wall Street analysts, on average, expected earnings of $1.02 a share. This is 42% more than the Street predictions.<\/p>\n
Transocean LTD (NYSE:RIG)\u2019s total revenues rose 7% to $2.34 billion from $2.18 billion in the previous year quarter. Analysts\u2019 predictions was $2.27 billion, which has come again well ahead of the Street\u2019s estimations.<\/p>\n
Revenue from contract drilling witnessed 7% growth at $2.29 billion fueled by increased fleet revenue efficiency rate of 95.7% compared to 88% in the year earlier quarter. Its efficient rate on ultra-deepwater also increased to 96.4% from 90.0% in the previous year quarter. However, the company witnessed a slight fall in the fleet utilization level to 78% from 80% in the prior year first quarter.<\/p>\n
Cost Control<\/b><\/p>\n
The strong quarterly bottom line was also due to the management\u2019s cost control. Its costs and expenses witnessed a 5.8% drop to $1.60 billion from $1.7 billion and that its operating and maintenance expenses slipped 6.4% to $1.27 billion from $1.35 billion in the year-ago quarter. The company attributed the positive results due to lower maintenance and shipyard costs besides its cost cutting program.<\/p>\n
Transocean LTD (NYSE:RIG) said that it has secured an additional $470 million worth of contracts after the backlog fleet status report of $26.1 billion that existed as on April 17.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boston, MA 05\/12\/2014 (wallstreetpr) \u2013 Offshore drilling contractor Transocean LTD (NYSE:RIG) announced strong financial results for the first quarter driven by higher revenues as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":21884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_2902945987_2902945987":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[2236],"tags":[960,1776],"stock_ticker":[],"class_list":["post-21881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-nyserig","tag-transocean-ltd-nyserig","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n