Transocean profit more than doubles on GlobalSantaFe sales

HOUSTON—Transocean Inc., the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, said Wednesday its first-quarter earnings more than doubled, mostly boosted by sales from its acquired competitor GlobalSantaFe Corp.

The results were well above Wall Street's expectations. Shares rose $4.16, or 2.6 percent, to $162.01 in premarket trading, from their close at $157.85.

The company earned $1.19 billion, or $3.71 per share, compared with $553 million, or $2.62 per share, in the year-ago quarter.

Transocean had an average of about 321 million shares outstanding in the 2008 period, compared with 212 million in the 2007 first quarter. The first three months of 2008 marked the first full quarter of operation since it acquired GlobalSantaFe Corp. late last year.

Revenue shot up to $3.11 billion, from $1.33 billion in the prior-year period. Along with sales from GlobalSantaFe's operations, the company said the quarter was helped by higher day rates for its rigs.

Analysts, on average, were expecting a profit of $3.33 per share, on revenue of $3.05 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

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