Helmerich Payne (NYSE: HP) reported Q1 EPS of ($0.33), $0.03 better than the analyst estimate of ($0.36). Revenue for the quarter came in at $369 million versus the consensus estimate of $335.1 million.

President and CEO John Lindsay commented, “The outlook has been improving in the U.S. Land drilling market, resulting in a significant increase in the Company’s activity levels and market share over the last few months. Spot pricing remains low, although we continue to see some pricing improvements for high quality, high performing AC drive rigs. As reflected in the first quarter results, the rapid pace of the market recovery and our efforts to redeploy additional rigs had an impact on our daily expenses and operating income for the quarter. Although temporary in nature, we expect continued upward pressure on expenses as the ramp-up proceeds and we absorb some up-front costs reactivating more rigs, particularly rigs that were cold stacked during the early stages of the downturn. Nonetheless, we are pleased with our ability to respond to the increasing level of demand and we believe that we are uniquely positioned to continue to gain incremental market share.

“The downturn has been a challenging two year journey, and H&P has been preparing for the opportunity this upturn presents. Our competitive advantages remain in our people, performance, technology, reliability and uniform FlexRig®* fleet. These advantages should allow us to continue to outpace our competitors and regain pricing power during this recovery, especially as customer well designs become increasingly more complex and require higher specification AC drive rigs.”

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