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Nabors Alaska Drilling to absorb Pool Arctic Alaska Parent company stock deal pending shareholder approval; effects on Alaska jobs unknown Tom Hall PNA Staff Writer
Two Anchorage-based companies, Nabors Alaska Drilling Inc. and Pool Arctic Alaska, will almost certainly feel the pinch of economies of operation when Nabors Industries Inc. (the Alaska subsidiary’s parent company), acquires Pool’s parent company, Pool Energy Services Inc. The $327 million stock deal is Nabors Industries’ second acquisition; the company recently completed a merger with Bayard Drilling Technologies Inc.
In a February statement, Nabors Chairman and CEO Eugene Isenberg said that depending on the timing of the regulatory and shareholder approvals, the company plans to complete its acquisition of Pool near the end of the second quarter. Isenberg said that when the acquisitions are complete, “We plan immediately to implement the attendant cost savings and operating economies ... to minimize the risk of possible short-term dilution.” What does it mean for Alaska? Despite poor fourth quarter profits of $21 million (versus 1997’s $41.3 million in the same period), Nabors achieved its second best financial performance in 1998.
Locally, details of the “cost savings and operating economies” are still unknown, although Nabors Alaska Drilling President Jim Denney believes there will be relatively few job cuts as a result of the acquisition, and those cuts are likely to come only where there is duplication. What is known is that Pool will be absorbed into Nabors, the Pool name will be dropped, the companies will share offices and Pool’s drilling rig contracts will transfer to Nabors.
The Alaska subsidiary posted a 40 percent jump in 1998 operating income over 1997, but in a prepared statement, Isenberg predicted that the continuing slump on the North Slope would cause “a decrease in activity beginning in the first quarter.” On a more optimistic note, he said that Alaska’s “remaining reserves and the installed infrastructure bode well for the longer-term outlook ... with an improvement in crude prices.”
Nabors Industries markets more than 400 land drilling rigs worldwide, and offshore, 25 platform rigs, six jackups and two barge drilling rigs. The company also manufactures top drives and drilling instrumentation systems, and provides a variety of oilfield services.
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