Hunting warns on US shale slowdown

Hunting warned on Tuesday that expectations for annual profit were under threat from a sharpening slowdown in the US onshore oil and gas market as the company approaches its year end.

The energy services group said it still expected earnings in the year to the end of December to be within the range of market expectations but that this result depends on trading in December. Capital spending by customers is likely to fall in 2020, the company added.

In the US, drained customer budgets and seasonal declines are hurting the company's fourth-quarter results and some clients have closed facilities serving the US shale sector. The slowdown has affected sales at Hunting's specialty, drilling tools and Its Titan perforated systems businesses.

"Hunting Titan's revenue and operating profits during October and November were below the average monthly run-rate of Q3 2019 due to the slowing US onshore market," Hunting said in a trading update. "New products and technologies continue to be developed and commercialised. However, the market remains highly competitive and continues to decline in line with activity levels and rig counts."

The FTSE 250 company warned that announcements from its publicly-traded customers indicated that capital spending in 2020 would decline as the oil and gas industry tries to improve returns and cash generation. Hunting shares fell 5.9% to 385p at 0805 GMT.

The once-booming US shale industry is slowing rapidly as production disappoints at wells and sites run out earlier than expected. These trends suggest the benefits of engineering advances that allowed shale companies to unearth record volumes of oil and gas from rock are flattening out.

Hunting's capital spending in 2019 will be about $40m and the company's net cash position will be $65m at the end of the year.