Halliburton's Q2 2026 financial performance was anchored by $5.71 billion in total revenue - a 6% sequential increase from Q1 that surpassed Wall Street expectations. The company reported a GAAP net income of $534 million ($0.64 diluted EPS), while adjusted net income came in at $461 million ($0.55 adjusted EPS), edging out consensus estimates. Operating income reached $778 million with a solid 14% operating margin, backed by $824 million in operating cash flow and $668 million in free cash flow.
Geographically, North America revenue climbed 7% to $2.3 billion, propelled by active Gulf of Mexico fluids operations and U.S. land demand. International revenue expanded 5% to $3.4 billion, headlined by a sharp 19% sequential pop in Europe/Africa ($1.0 billion) on strong North Sea and African offshore work, alongside steady growth in Latin America ($1.1 billion, up 3%). This offset mild headwinds in the Middle East/Asia region ($1.3 billion, down 2%), where local conflicts briefly curtailed activity in Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar. Halliburton maintained its focus on shareholder returns during the quarter, distributing a $0.17 per share dividend and deploying approximately $200 million toward share buybacks.
Following its Q2 2026 earnings, Halliburton guided $1.1 billion in full-year CapEx and projected low-double-digit international revenue growth (excluding the Middle East), driven by deepwater momentum in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. In North America, management expects a modest, gradual recovery in the second half of 2026 as pricing stabilizes. Conversely, Middle East and Asia activity is expected to remain flat at Q2 levels, omitting quick recoveries in Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar due to regional volatility. Quarterly overhead includes ~$80 million in corporate expenses, ~$45 million for SAP migration, and an effective tax rate of ~19%. Supported by these factors, management expects sequential margin expansion through 2026 and into 2027.
The Middle East conflict involving Iran created a direct operational headwind for Halliburton in Q2 2026, primarily through localized activity disruptions and elevated geopolitical risks in neighboring areas. Middle East & Asia revenue slipped 2% sequentially to $1.3 billion, driven by lower wireline and oilfield service volume across Kuwait, Iraq, and Qatar as ongoing tensions curtailed active operations. However, these localized slowdowns were partially cushioned by expanded well construction and unconventional gas projects with Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia and steady demand in the UAE. To account for this ongoing instability, management adopted a cautious stance for its second-half 2026 outlook, modeling Middle East activity to remain flat at Q2 levels rather than assuming a quick operational recovery in conflict-adjacent markets.
Below are the key drivers of Halliburton's value that present opportunities for upside or downside to the current Trefis price estimate for Halliburton Company's stock:
For additional details, select a driver above or select a division from the interactive Trefis split for Halliburton at the top of the page.
Halliburton provides upstream drilling and exploration services to oil and gas production activities required by firms such as Exxon Mobil and National Oil Companies (NOCs) like Saudi Aramco to explore, develop, and service their oil resources. The company has extensive geographical coverage, conducts business in approximately 80 countries, and provides products and services for oil and gas exploration, drilling, and post-drilling services.
We believe the North American division of Halliburton is more valuable than the other geographical divisions primarily because of:
North America accounts for approximately 50% of the total rig count published by Baker Hughes. While the Revenue per Rig is the lowest in this region, the size of the market in terms of the number of rigs exceeds the combined size of the other three geographic divisions of Latin America, Europe / CIS / Africa, and the Middle East / Asia. Production growth in North America has been strong over the past few years.
The strong push toward exploiting unconventional sources of hydrocarbons such as shale gas, tar sands, and heavy oil in North America increases the potential for additional revenues to Halliburton as exploration for these sources requires complex technology and more intensive processes. The shift has also increased the service intensity of the rigs in North America, which should result in higher Revenue per Rig in the region. Tight oil plays accounted for 60% of all U.S. crude oil production and shale gas accounted for more than half of the proven reserves of U.S. natural gas.
A large portion of the Gulf of Mexico remains under-tapped. It could hold a total of around 48 billion barrels of oil compared to the 13 billion barrels of reserves estimated for onshore, as well as coastal oilfields. Since many of these untapped resources are located in deep and ultra-deep waters, they will call for a high level of technical expertise as well as a higher service intensity translating into more activity for oilfield services companies.
Oil prices started plummeting in mid-2014 due to the demand-supply mismatch in the global oil markets. This resulted in weaker oilfield service activity throughout 2015 and 2016, as oil and gas companies curtailed upstream spending due to falling cash flows. This severely hit the business of oilfield services companies till 2019. Then, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic hammered the oil industry in 2020, as governments closed businesses and restricted travel. However, oil prices saw a rebound on the news of the planned rollout of multiple COVID-19 vaccines by the beginning of 2021.
Oil prices rose early in 2022 as a surprising economic rebound drove demand for oil after several months of lockdowns. Secondly, the supply was not able to respond to increased demand as OPEC was probably cautious not to oversupply the market again, and the fact that oil production has long investment cycles. Lastly, the oil prices also increased sharply due to the conflict in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.
To limit the excess supplies and stabilize prices, the OPEC+ group in April 2023 decided to cut production and has since continued to extend these cuts. Despite the OPEC+ group’s decision to extend their production cut, weakness continued in global oil markets on faltering demand from China and swelling American supplies in 2024. Escalating geopolitical tension also added pressure on the demand outlook of the commodity. Oil has been trading in a tight range since then. It was broadly congested inside $90-$67 per barrel on worries that supplies will exceed demand.
Halliburton is largely at the mercy of market conditions, and the tepid oil price growth is not helping either. Oil prices in 2025 were volatile but ended lower, as brief spikes from geopolitical tensions were outweighed by oversupply and weak demand growth driven by strong U.S. shale output, easing OPEC+ cuts, rising inventories, and a slowing global economy.
Several key factors are poised to shape the global oil market in 2026.
In 2026, the oil market will be driven mainly by oversupply risk versus subdued demand growth, with resilient non-OPEC production, uncertain OPEC+ output discipline, and slowing global consumption keeping prices capped, while geopolitics and macro conditions inject periodic volatility rather than sustained upside.
Increasingly over the past few years, significant oil and gas finds have been in deepwater and other remote locations such as the CIS and Iraq. Exploiting these sources adds tremendous logistical and technical complexity to the exploration projects that translate into revenues for upstream products and services firms such as Halliburton.
The IEA estimates that non-OPEC oil production peaked in 2010. This means that future oil and gas finds will get increasingly rarer, and the size of the discoveries will decline, leading to higher exploration and drilling costs to maintain historical outputs of oil.
Natural gas prices remain suppressed because of the perceived high storage levels and the oversupply of gas in the market. The lagging demand will translate into lower investments in natural gas exploration in the short term.
Exploration for unconventional sources, such as shale and tight gas, is expected to increase in Argentina, Mexico, Poland, China, and Saudi Arabia over the next 1-5 years, resulting in higher revenues and operating profits for Halliburton in these regions.
Oil firms are investing in technology to help them reduce the decline rates seen in major fields over their lifetime. Pemex has been engaged in efforts to arrest the decline in its Canterall fields, while Saudi Aramco has also made it a priority to reduce the decline in its fields at 2-3% per annum.
Halliburton has been veering toward offering more fully integrated offerings, which include an entire suite of services for integrated well construction and intervention. Only SLB has a comparable offering among its competitors, giving Halliburton an edge in this area.
