Topic: Energy Stocks

Higher drilling activity pushes up this resource stock’s revenue

Precision Drilling Corp. (symbol PD on Toronto) provides contract-drilling services to oil and gas producers. Precision owns 355 drilling rigs in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Precision recently converted from an income trust to a regular corporation. Investors received one common share for each trust unit they held. The change is in response to Ottawa’s new tax on income-trust distributions, which came into effect on January 1, 2011.

In 2010, the resource stock’s revenue rose 19.4%, to $1.4 billion from $1.2 billion in 2009. Higher drilling activity was the main reason for the gain. Precision earned $62.1 million, or $0.22 a share. That’s down 61.6% from $161.7 million, or $0.63 a share, in 2009.

However, several one-time items affected the latest earnings: the company recorded a foreign-exchange gain of $13 million in 2010, compared to $123 million for 2009. As well, in 2009, Precision paid $82 million to decommission assets, compared to no charge in 2010.

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