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Thursday, May 08, 2008

TransOcean's First Quarter Profit Doubles

Transocean Inc., the world's largest offshore oil driller, said first-quarter profit more than doubled as record crude prices increased exploration for new reserves.

Net income rose to $1.19 billion, or $3.71 a share, from $553 million, or $2.62, a year earlier, the Houston-based company said today in a statement.

Oil producers are expanding the search for untouched oil reserves from India to the Canadian Arctic as record prices make previously uneconomic fields worth drilling. Companies will spend $380 billion boring 20,000 offshore wells during the next five years, according to analysts at Douglas-Westwood Ltd.

Sales more than doubled to $3.11 billion from $1.33 billion. The average first-quarter rent for Transocean's ultra-deepwater floating rigs was $380,800 a day, up 26 percent from a year earlier.

The company tripled its cash and cash equivalents to $1.57 billion.
– Bloomberg

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