The changing oil prices have been extending a positive impact on Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTEN) shares.
The company’s share went up by 3.01% on Wednesday afternoon following an increase in oil prices. The upward oil price shift was caused by a decline in the level of crude oil in the US inventory, a simple case of the law of supply and demand at play.
The shifting prices are a welcome relief for the company especially following the August share dip that was caused by a decrease in the company’s short interest last month. The company’s shares dropped from 20,259,753 shares on August 14 to 16,466,441 shares on August 30, thus resulting in a short interest of 18.7%. The current short interest ratio stands at 2.5 days based on the average daily volume of 6,638,573 shares.
During Patterson-UTI Energy’s recent quarterly earnings report, the firm announced that its earnings per share amounted to $0.13. The EPS listed above Zack’s estimate of $0.27 by $0.14. The quarterly earnings amounted to $473 million while the consensus estimate had suggested earnings of $449.66 million.
Patterson-UTI Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTEN) operates a fleet of pressure pumping equipment and drilling rigs in the United States. The company also owns this equipment. Operations are handled through pressure pumping, contract drilling and oil and natural gas. The contract drilling services are usually marketed out to natural gas and oil handlers in Continental and Western United States as well as Northern Canada. The pressure pumping segment usually operates in Texas. The oil and natural gas segment also operates in Texas and New Mexico.
The crude oil inventories in the United States had a 2.1 million drop in the number of barrels from a total barrel inventory count of 455.9 million. According to Reuters, Analysts were expecting the number of barrels to rise by 2.q million. Motor gasoline inventories rose by 2.8 million barrels while the distillate fuel inventory went up by 3.1 million barrels last week.
