Ensco shares buoyed by quarterly results

HOUSTON: Shares of Ensco Plc out-performed rivals on Tuesday, a day after the owner of the world's second-largest offshore drilling fleet reported second-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations.

Shares of the company, which has purchased rival Pride International, rose 7 percent in early afternoon trading.

Ensco also said its savings next year from the Pride merger would be double its earlier estimate of $50 million, a forecast that adds to earnings, analysts noted.

Merger integration is going well and the company's new organizational structure is already in place, Ensco Chief Executive officer Dan Rabun told analysts on a conference call.

Excluding acquisition and severance charges, Ensco had a second-quarter profit of 71 cents per share, above the Wall Street consensus of 67 cents per share, according to estimates from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Ensco beat out a number of suitors to snap up Pride, in a deal that closed at the end of May and extended the London-based company's reach into the lucrative deepwater fields off Brazil and West Africa.

Revenue in 2011 is expected to be $3 billion, in line with analysts' forecast for revenue of $2.9 billion, according to data from Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares of Ensco rose $2.88, or 7 percent, to $43.30 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock outperformed a 5 percent gain in the Philadelphia Stock Exchange index of oil-field services company.

Copyright Reuters, 2011