But during this quarter's round of conference calls, investors may pay more attention to future outlooks than the third-quarter results, analysts said.
Oil and natural gas prices have fallen recently, which spurred investor fears of a slowdown in North American drilling. The Philadelphia Oil Service Sector Index, comprised of 15 of the industry's bigger players, has been steadily dropping, down about 22 percent from its early May peak. Some analysts have said they expect the index to continue to fall through October and possibly into early November.
Noble Corp. kicks off the earnings season on Thursday, and Schlumberger Ltd. follows on Friday.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Kurt Hallead said he doesn't expect to see as many "blow-out" earnings reports as in recent quarters.
Morgan Keegan analyst J. Michael Drickamer said in a recent report, "we believe that 3Q:06 earnings will be at least as good as expected and given the lack of hurricane disruptions, earnings across the oilfield services industry stand a strong chance of being better than expected."
He expects North American drilling activity to "pause" in 2007, but he doesn't think it will lead to a cyclical downturn. The pause, he said, will allow excess natural gas inventories to deplete. The falling inventories would then encourage further drilling.
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