HOUSTON (AP) _ Halliburton Co. (HAL) on Tuesday reported fourth-quarter profit of $656 million.

The Houston-based company said it had profit of 72 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 67 cents per share.

The provider of drilling services to oil and gas operators posted revenue of $5.58 billion in the period, which matched Street forecasts.

For the year, the company reported profit of $1.57 billion, or $1.73 per share. Revenue was reported as $20.3 billion.

This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on HAL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/HAL

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