Oil Service Outlook Dims as E&P Spending Forecast Falls

Oil Daily, The, December, 2002 by Paul Merolli

Oil Service Outlook Dims as E&P Spending Forecast Falls

Investment bank Lehman Brothers lowered its ratings on shares of several leading oil service and drilling companies on Wednesday, citing recent indications that exploration and production (E&P) spending in 2003 could be disappointing.

Lehman Brothers changed its opinion on the oil service group to "neutral" from "positive," dispensing individual company downgrades to Halliburton, Nabors Industries, BJ Services, Smith International, and Patterson-UTI Energy.

"Based on nearly complete results of our global E&P spending survey, it is clear that global E&P spending growth in 2003 will be less than the 7% that we anticipated. The shortfall appears to be largely on the US side," said analyst Lehman...