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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


CORE LAB REPORTS FULL YEAR & FOURTH QUARTER 2015 RESULTS:
  • FOURTH-QUARTER REVENUE OF $182.7 MILLION DECREASED 7% SEQUENTIALLY
  • FOURTH-QUARTER EPS OF $0.65, EXCLUDING ITEMS
  • FOURTH-QUARTER SEVERANCE AND OTHER CHARGES TOTALED $0.29 PER SHARE
  • FULL-YEAR FREE CASH FLOW OF $196.3 MILLION, REPRESENTED MORE THAN 144% OF NET INCOME, EX-ITEMS, AND MORE THAN 24% OF REVENUE - LEADING INDUSTRY
  • YEAR-END SHARE COUNT REDUCED TO NEW 18-YEAR LOW
  • FIRST QUARTER 2016 CASH DIVIDEND OF $0.55 PER SHARE ANNOUNCED


AMSTERDAM (27 January 2016) - Core Laboratories N.V. (NYSE: "CLB US") (Euronext Amsterdam: "CLB NA") ("Core", "Core Lab", or the "Company") reported fourth quarter 2015 earnings per diluted share ("EPS") of $0.65, excluding certain charges for severance and impairments among others ("ex-items") referenced in the non-GAAP reconciliation included in this release. Fourth quarter 2015 revenue totaled $182,700,000, down 7% sequentially from third quarter 2015 levels while full-year 2015 revenue was down 27%. By comparison, U.S. land rig count was down 16% on a sequential quarterly basis and down over 60% on a year-over-year quarterly basis. International activity levels also decreased on a sequential quarterly basis in the fourth quarter of 2015. Ex-items, net income for the quarter was $27,700,000, while operating income was $39,500,000, yielding operating margins of 22%, the highest of major oilfield services companies reporting fourth quarter 2015 results to date.


Free cash flow ("FCF") for the fourth quarter 2015, defined as cash from operations less capital expenditures, was $44,800,000, exceeding quarterly net income for the fifth consecutive quarter and resulting in a FCF total that exceeded 144% of net income, ex-items, in 2015, leading the industry. In 2015, Core converted over 24% of every revenue dollar into FCF, the highest of all major oilfield companies that have reported fourth quarter 2015 results. Core's ability to generate free cash in the current oilfield environment is unmatched in the oilfield services industry and gives the Company an unrivaled ability to capitalize on a variety of significant business opportunities. In the quarter, Core used the cash to pay approximately $23,300,000 in dividends and to repurchase 132,918 shares for approximately $15,300,000, reducing Core's outstanding share count to an 18-year low. In September 2015, Core celebrated its 20th year as a publicly traded company and now, in 2016, will celebrate its 80th anniversary.


As reported in previous quarters, the Board of Supervisory Directors ("Board") of Core Laboratories N.V. has established an internal performance metric of achieving a return on invested capital ("ROIC") in the top decile of the service companies listed as Core's peers by Bloomberg Financial ("Comp Group"). Based on Bloomberg's calculations for the latest comparable data available, Core's ROIC is the highest in its oilfield services Comp Group. Moreover, the Company has the highest ROIC to Weighted Average Cost of Capital ("WACC") ratio in its Comp Group.


The Company continues to anticipate a "V-shaped" worldwide activity recovery in 2016 with upticks starting in the third quarter. Global demand for hydrocarbon-based energy continues to improve, while worldwide crude

oil supply peaked in the second half of 2015, beginning a decline that Core believes will continue through all of 2016. The Company currently believes that U.S. land production peaked in March 2015 and has fallen since then by over 600,000 barrels of oil per day ("bopd"), some of which was offset by new additions to production in the Gulf of Mexico ("GOM") as a result of recent field developments coming on-line in 2015. Given the current, depressed commodity prices, Core believes further new additions to production in the GOM will not be sustainable. Based on currently available worldwide crude oil production data, coupled with internal Core Lab data, Core has increased its estimate of the net worldwide annual crude oil production decline curve rate to 3.1% from 2.5%. This additional 60 basis points decline is predicated on sharper decline curve rates for tight-oil reservoirs and the significant decline in maintenance capital expenditures for the existing crude oil production base.


At current U.S. activity levels, Core predicts 2016 crude oil production to be lower year-over-year; perhaps falling by over 900,000 bopd in 2016. This, coupled with the continuing decline in international production and the continuing increase in global energy consumption, should create a tight crude oil supply market for the second half of 2016, which should lead to increased crude prices and industry activity levels worldwide.


Segment Highlights


Core Laboratories reports results under three operating segments: Reservoir Description, Production Enhancement, and Reservoir Management. All operating results are presented ex-items as referenced in the non-GAAP reconciliation.


Reservoir Description


Reservoir Description operations, which focus primarily on international markets and an increasing number of reservoir fluid phase-behavior projects, posted fourth quarter 2015 revenue of $114,800,000, down less than 3% on a sequential quarterly basis from third quarter 2015 revenue levels. Operating income was

$28,600,000, and operating margins were 24.9%. Fourth quarter revenue and operating margins were underpinned by the Company's differentiated technological superiority of service offerings -- in particular for projects in the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions. Technologically driven projects in the deepwater GOM also were additive to fourth quarter results.


Reservoir Description operating results exhibited similar relative strength during the 2009 downturn, indicating the mission-critical nature and value of the cutting-edge technologies delivered by Core compared with lower-technology, commodity-related offerings, such as pressure pumping and international land drilling and exploration services.


Core Lab continues to expand the scope and extent of its Digital Rock Characterization ("DRC") services. After its successful introduction in the U.S., Middle East, and South America, with broad client acceptance, Core has now added DRC to its portfolio of service offerings in Canada. This new technology will allow Canadian operators to quickly investigate caprock integrity on cores from Alberta's vast subsurface oil sands deposits, where cyclic steam stimulation and steam-assisted-gravity-drainage ("SAGD") processes are utilized to optimize heavy hydrocarbon recovery. Caprock competency is essential for efficiency, productivity, safety, and environmental compliance during these enhanced oil recovery ("EOR") operations, and it is especially critical in lower-priced energy environments.


In addition to evaluating overall core characteristics, Core's new DRC technology will enable operators to quickly select competent and representative samples for traditional rock mechanics analyses and derive data that are crucial for accurate modeling of stress and strain profiles and optimization of steam injection parameters. In addition, DRC services will allow Core's Canadian clients to utilize our extensive rock- properties-based proprietary algorithms to establish petrophysical properties from computer tomography, microcomputer tomography, and other imaging techniques on both conventional and unconventional reservoirs.

Offshore South America, a large international oil company has commenced an extensive coring program to evaluate reservoir properties on a potentially giant field discovery. Core Lab has been working with this client since the inception of the evaluation drilling. Initially, lab measurements will be used to define rock properties, determine reservoir fluid saturations, and measure flow properties. These will form the foundation for calculating hydrocarbon volume-in-place and the production potential of the various reservoir zones. In addition, Core's geologic staff will help the client understand detailed rock properties and reservoir heterogeneities. This program should continue to unfold as wells are planned, and core and fluid samples acquired, over the next several years. As the lab analytical program proceeds, Core will conduct reservoir condition testing that will be used to calibrate downhole logs and provide the physical basis for modeling reservoir performance.


In the deepwater GOM, another large, international oil company continues to evaluate core and fluid samples from wells drilled during the fourth quarter 2015 and into 2016. Core is delivering proprietary core and fluid analysis technologies that are essential to proper evaluation of the intense reservoir temperature and pressure conditions encountered in these ultra-deep wells.


In the Middle East, Core Laboratories continues to support its clients through newly commissioned multi-year projects in Qatar, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. These complement Core's existing long-term projects in other countries in the region.


In the fourth quarter, the Company continued to expand its capabilities through capital investment in flow testing at in situ reservoir temperatures and pressures. Proprietary equipment designed and manufactured by Core will determine relative permeability relationships and will be used to optimize the design of EOR programs. Core is expanding its capacity for advanced rock properties testing to help its national oil company clients increase recovery from their currently producing reservoirs. In this capital-constrained environment, cost effectively extracting incremental hydrocarbons can only be achieved through an advanced understanding of reservoir rock and fluid phase behavior characteristics. In collaboration with its clients, Core Laboratories leverages its expertise, experience, and proprietary instruments to evaluate reservoir fluid properties and simulate complex flow behavior at full reservoir conditions.


Production Enhancement


Production Enhancement operations, largely focused on North American unconventional reservoirs and deepwater completions and stimulations, continued to be impacted by the difficult operating environment in North America as onshore fourth quarter rig count fell more than 16% sequentially from third quarter levels. Production Enhancement's fourth quarter 2015 revenue fell approximately 13% on a sequential quarterly basis to $56,600,000, while operating income was $7,300,000, and operating margins were 13.0%.


During the quarter, Production Enhancement operations performed services in the ongoing Wolfcamp Hydraulic Fracturing Test Site Program joint-industry project. This project is being managed by the Gas Technology Institute, with significant funding from the Department of Energy. Core is providing all of the completion diagnostic services, permanent downhole sensors, and core analyses for this project. Ultimately, the data from this project will help answer many technical questions about stimulation and development optimization that can be applied to various shale plays.


Core continued to provide completion diagnostic services in several of the major GOM deepwater fields in the fourth quarter, including the Lower Tertiary play in the Walker Ridge area, the deepwater Keathley Canyon area, and three Mississippi Canyon fields. Core's completion diagnostics helped prove the efficacy of a new single-trip, multi-zone stimulation technology that enabled the operator to cut the completion time by 18 to 20 hours per zone, resulting in major savings in rig time. Once again, Core is playing a significant role in addressing the technological challenges of the deepwater GOM.


One of the benefits for Core during the current downturn in North America completions is the willingness of its clients to evaluate technologies for wellsite efficiency and production enhancement. Production

Enhancement operations are gaining traction with numerous patented and proprietary products supported by applied science and testing. In one example in the fourth quarter, an Eagle Ford operator completed a multi- stage well utilizing Core's PerFRAC-HERO®charges on numerous stages versus an alternate charge on other stages. The operator noted that during frac operations, the intervals perforated with PerFRAC-HERO charges "broke down the formation at significantly lower frac pumping pressures".


Applying the Bernoulli principle to the drawdown pressure across an individual perforation, Core's engineers have optimized the uniformity of the hole diameter around the production casing, thereby reducing friction pressure and lowering the hydraulic horsepower required for formation breakdown by more than 30% in some cases. Lower horsepower requirements reduce the pumping cost, and more uniform hole size facilitates consistent proppant placement throughout each perf cluster, contributing to enhanced fracture treatment. Since its introduction in the second quarter of 2015, PerFRAC-HERO technology has gained rapid acceptance. Over 300,000 PerFRAC-HERO charges were used in the fourth quarter by customers throughout North America.


Outside North America, Core Lab's global footprint and operational support provided perforating charges and gun systems to numerous international and national oil companies in over sixty countries. When clients want to increase production through optimized perforation of natural, non-fractured completions, Core Lab's HERO-HRTM line of charges and gun systems designed to perform in hard rock environments provides industry-leading penetration, while Core's patented high wolfram-molybdenum technology minimizes debris. This combination of high-penetration and low-debris performance has resulted in increased customer usage, with Core's API certified industry-leading, deepest-penetrating (69.3-inch), 39-gram HERO®-HR charge having its greatest usage ever.


Reservoir Management


Reservoir Management operations posted fourth quarter 2015 revenues of $11,400,000 and operating income of $3,700,000 yielding operating margins of 32.2%. Revenues, operating income, and margins were lower on a sequential quarterly basis for the reasons discussed last quarter as client year-end budgets neared exhaustion and highly discretionary purchases of Reservoir Management's joint-industry projects were lower than third quarter 2015 levels.


In spite of the volatility in the oil industry during the fourth quarter of 2015, Core Lab was able to maintain a steady, albeit lower, stream of sales for its geological studies. Much of this activity is still driven by private- equity-backed companies that are using the studies as databases to expedite the evaluation process and minimize the risk associated with acquiring new assets and acreage positions.


Core Lab has developed new products that add value for its clients by re-examining and analyzing existing cores. The objective of this new work is to optimize completion practices and implement more efficient and more effective hydraulic fracture stimulations by integrating new geological and engineering data. The most active region for this work is in the Permian Basin of West Texas. Outside of North America, the regions of West Africa and the east coast of South America continue to be the focus of potential development activity. Recent offshore discoveries in Senegal, Guyana, Cote d'Ivoire, and the Ceara Basin of Brazil have renewed interest in these areas. Core Lab is actively working on new geological studies in these areas or has recently completed studies that are available to companies with existing acreage or who are evaluating entry to these areas.


These studies provide basin-wide geological models that operating companies are unable to create themselves because they cannot access the regional data available to Core Lab. They use these models to better understand the geology of their leases, which significantly reduces their risk of drilling very expensive, deepwater dry holes.

Core Laboratories NV issued this content on 27 January 2016 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 27 January 2016 22:28:10 UTC

Original Document: http://www.corelab.com/investors/cms/docs/press_release/2016_01_27_earnings_release.pdf