National Oilwell Announces Increased Backlog

National Oilwell also announced that it did not receive the total project management and engineering design work associated with the first round of North Sea platform projects. Four large projects were awarded over the last three months, including the most recently announced Valhall and Grane projects.

Joel Staff, chairman, president and CEO of National Oilwell, stated, "We are very pleased with the build in our traditional capital equipment backlog during the third quarter to $180 million. There are continued indications from our customers of a significant uptrend in land and offshore rig refurbishments, which include plans to acquire new capital equipment of the type we provide. Current commodity prices are generating higher utilization of existing rigs and causing dayrates to rise to a point that we believe justify new capital equipment.

"While we are disappointed that we did not receive the full project management for one of the recent awards, we intend to vigorously pursue similar projects in the future. This type of project would represent a new, non-traditional source of revenue for National Oilwell and is a natural extension of our business. We continue to believe that integrated solutions for drilling components will provide significant benefits to our customers and that National Oilwell is well positioned to deliver these solutions."

National Oilwell is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of comprehensive systems and components used in oil and gas drilling and production, as well as in providing supply chain integration services to the upstream oil and gas industry.