Halliburton retains its spot because of its efforts to replicate the US shale boom in the GCC. This is central to achieving the goal of gas self-sufficiency common among many national oil companies.
But lowering the cost of production is not as simple as it sounds, since the Middle East has a different set of obstacles than North America. As such, Halliburton has made concerted efforts to ‘localise’ shale production, allowing operators to use locally-available resources to extract unconventional hydrocarbons.
Meanwhile, it also signed a $597mn contract with Kuwait Oil Company for its offshore exploration programme. Halliburton’s work in the region has been reflected in the $1.2bn of revenue it raked in from the Middle East and Asia in Q4 2018, a period when oil prices were fluctuating.
In FY 2018, it generated $24bn revenue, up $3.4bn (16%) from the previous year, with reported operating income of $2.5bn, up from $1.4bn in 2017.
