Halliburton orders steady despite crude fall-report
Aug 14 (Reuters) - Halliburton Co (HAL.N), the world's second-largest oilfield services company, does not expect crude oil's 17 percent slide this quarter to reduce demand for its exploration and drilling services, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing the company's chief executive.
"Customers are basing decisions on significantly lower oil prices, and they plan very long-term projects that don't switch on or switch off based on the oil price," Chief Executive David Lesar told Bloomberg. "I don't really see it having a major impact on our business," he said.
Halliburton, which opened an office in Dubai last year in a bid to win more international business, confirmed in April that it had won a large three-year contract in Saudi Aramco's offshore Manifa field, which has a production target of 900,000 barrels of oil per day.
"We're just in the ramp-up phase and are waiting for some of the drilling rigs to become available, so that project is more ahead of us at this point in time," Lesar told the agency.
"We'll probably get started at the latter part of this year, but certainly as we get into early next year," he said.
Lesar expects "robust opportunities" in most Middle Eastern countries where new technologies are required and contractors are in short supply, the agency said.
Halliburton is also in talks with international oil companies about joint projects in Iraq, and will be vying for Abu Dhabi's $10 billion sour gas project, in which ConocoPhillips (COP.N) has a 40 percent stake, Bloomberg said.
The agency also said Halliburton wants to be involved in Kuwait's plans to produce an extra 700,000 barrels a day of heavy oil, which is more difficult to pump than conventional reserves. (Reporting by Tenzin Pema in Bangalore; editing by Simon Jessop)
