Baker Hughes beats first-quarter profit on strong demand for natural gas technology

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(Reuters) -U.S. oilfield technology firm Baker Hughes beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by robust demand for natural gas technology.

The upbeat results come as oilfield services firms are bracing for the impact of tariffs introduced by President Trump, which are expected to raise costs and disrupt the sourcing of key materials used in equipment like drill pipes and artificial lift systems.

With Big Tech pouring billions of dollars into AI technology, the demand for electricity to feed power-hungry data centres has been increasing and with it the demand for LNG.

Baker Hughes has been trying to leverage its Industrial and Energy Technology (IET) portfolio to drive growth and expand its presence in the natural gas and LNG sectors.

Orders in Baker Hughes’ gas technology jumped 17%, lifting revenue in its industrial and energy technology (IET) segment to $2.93 billion.

The Houston-based company provides compressors, turbines, valves and other modular systems to customers for gas processing.

Baker Hughes’ is the least likely of the Big 3 oilfield services firms to be impacted by tariff-related uncertainties and commodity prices due to the ‘heavy backlog’ in its IET segment, analysts told Reuters in the run up to the earnings season.

The company reported an adjusted profit of 51 cents per share for the three months ended March 31, compared with the analysts’ average expectation of 48 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.

(Reporting by Mrinalika Roy and Tanay Dhumal in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid and Alan Barona)