As energy aficionados recall, Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI) announced on the final day of August that it will pay $5.5 billion for its Houston neighbor, BJ Services (NYSE:BJS).
This week, at the Barclays Capital 2009 CEO Energy/Power Conference, Baker Hughes' CEO Chad Deaton and CFO Peter Ragauss explained why they are making the acquisition. As with the presentations by Baker's rivals Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) and Weatherford (NYSE:WFT), much of the discussion dealt how the biggest oilfield-service companies are enhancing their ability to bundle groups of services for their customers.
Deaton led off by explaining that since the world of energy has changed dramatically in recent years, it now requires a completely different set of technological skills to provide services to customers effectively, whether they're national oil companies such as Saudi Aramco, which now controls the majority of the world's oil and gas, or publicly held giants such as ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) or Chevron (NYSE:CVX).
Deaton said his company's acquisition of BJ Services continues an effort to fill in the gaps in Baker's product and service offerings. Doing so will let company compete more effectively with Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB) and Halliburton, which he considers Baker Hughes' key rivals. Past acquisitions allowed Baker to build out its "reservoir capability," which gave the company a better understanding of where hydrocarbons are likely to be found.
The next step was to address Baker's glaring absence of pressure-pumping capabilities, which is BJ Services' stock in trade. A minuscule amount of Baker Hughes' revenue came from pressure pumping last year, compared with about a quarter of Schlumberger's revenues and roughly 40% of Halliburton's. Deaton said BJ Services controls about 17% of the world's pressure-pumping business, enough to give Baker Hughes about 24% of its revenues from that business.
Baker will now look to four areas for further growth: the international markets, integrated operations within the company, deep-water activity, and North American shale plays. Having watched the company for more than a decade, I'm betting on its success, and I suggest that Fools watch its further maturation process closely.
Baker Hughes sports a full array of five stars in Motley Fool CAPS. Why not check out the company's CAPS page for a closer look?
