GE To Merge Oil Unit With Baker Hughes To Create Service Giant

GE To Merge Oil Unit With Baker Hughes To Create Service Giant
General Electric says it would merge its oil and gas business with Baker Hughes creating the world's second-largest oilfield services provider.

Reuters

Oct 31 (Reuters) - General Electric Co said on Monday it would merge its oil and gas business with Baker Hughes Inc, creating the world's second-largest oilfield services provider as industry competition heats up to supply more-efficient products and services to the energy industry.

The deal to create a company with $32 billion in annual revenue will combine GE's strengths in making equipment long-prized by oil producers with Baker Hughes's expertise in drilling and fracking new wells.

GE is already the world's largest oilfield equipment maker, supplying blowout preventers, pumps and compressors used in exploration and production. GE also has invested heavily in large data processing services just as the oil industry eyes its potential to boost oil recovery.

Baker Hughes, by contrast, is seen as one of the world leaders in horizontal drilling, chemicals used to frack and other services key to oil production.

"Both of them are quite complementary in terms of their skills set," GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt said on CNBC on Monday. "Our oil gas customers are going to want more productivity solutions."

Still, shares of Baker Hughes were down nearly 3 percent, a drop that Immelt and Baker CEO Martin Craighead said likely was due to the deal's complicated structure.

The new company will vault Baker Hughes's market share ahead of rival Halliburton Co, which tried and failed to buy Baker until the deal collapsed last May, and also compete heavily with Schlumberger NV, the world's largest oilfield service provider, for customers.

GE will own 62.5 percent of the new publicly traded company. The deal is expected to close in mid 2017.

Analysts said there was little overlap between the businesses of GE and Baker Hughes that would worry regulators.

GE and Baker Hughes will reach out to the Justice Department and European antitrust enforcers on Monday, according to a source close to the company. They have not yet determined how many jurisdictions they will need to file in.

GE will argue to antitrust enforcers - who stopped the deal between Halliburton and Baker Hughes just months ago - that their deal is complementary, and that they are committed to any remedy needed to win deal approval, the source said.

A small part of GE's business is selling equipment to Baker Hughes' competitors and they will continue those sales, the source said.

One expert knowledgeable about the oil business said General Electric and Baker Hughes had largely different businesses.

"I don't see any overlaps, significant overlaps," said Tom Seng, a veteran of the energy business who teaches at the University of Tulsa.

Oil Prices Near $50

The deal comes at a time when North American oil and gas producers are putting rigs back to work after a near-freeze in activity caused by a slump in oil prices that began mid-2014.

But the deal is predicated on a forecast for oil prices to rise to $60 per barrel by 2019, GE's Immelt told investors on Monday morning.

"This is a very compelling time for the deal," Immelt said, noting he expects $1.6 billion in annual cost savings by 2020.

Global oil prices have risen by a third this year to trade near $50 a barrel.


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David Thompson  |  November 01, 2016
The problem with the Halliburton/Baker merger, was that Baker was the weak sister and has been for years. Halliburtons position was that Halliburton survived, Baker laid off most of their best people. I dont have to take my shoes off to count the salaried FIELD drilling fluids hands Baker has left in the Rockies. GE does not know anything about running a full service well servicing company. They dont know anything about actually drilling a well, all the BS that goes along with it. They may have the fancy-ass tools, but thats not what gets a well drilled, its people and they dont have them. You can mock up all the scenarios you want, but it comes down to the nuts and bolts, those wells are drilled by guys with 100 IQs, theyre the ones out there at 0300 and youre not. Ive been a mud engineer for 36 years and all you office engineers need to get your butt out here for a year or so and learn how it really works. Even us dinosaurs have figured out how to give you the report you want to see and then we run things right.


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