HAL Halliburton Co

By Austen Hufford 

Halliburton Co. posted a loss and said revenue fell in its fourth quarter, though the oil-field-services company said the market in North America was on the upswing.

Chief Executive Dave Lesar said the energy market was in a "tale of two cycles," North America, which he said was largely positive, and the rest of the world, where he doesn't expect to see improvements until the second half of 2017.

"The North America market appears to have rounded the corner, but the international downward cycle is still playing out," he said.

In the North America region, the company's largest, revenue increased from the third quarter, and the company swung to an operating profit as better pricing and utilization combined with cost management boosted results. Still, revenue was down 16% from the fourth quarter in 2015.

During the quarter, Halliburton took a $53 million loss on the devaluation of the Egyptian pound and a separate $54 million charge to settle a 14-year-old securities fraud class action lawsuit that had gone to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In all for the December quarter, Halliburton posted a loss of $149 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $28 million, or 3 cents a share. On an adjusted basis, which excludes the lawsuit and currency fluctuations, the company posted a 4 cent profit per share.

Total revenue fell 21% to $4.02 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected a loss of 2 cents a share on $4.09 billion in revenue.

Shares in the company, which have risen 17% in the last three months, fell 0.8% to $56 in premarket trading.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 23, 2017 07:51 ET (12:51 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.