Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR) saw its loss narrow to $148.98 million, or $0.52 a share for the quarter ended Mar. 31, 2017. In the previous year period, the company reported a loss of $398.29 million, or $1.41 a share.

Revenue during the quarter surged 30.76 percent to $563.27 million from $430.76 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter expanded 1592 basis points over the previous year period to 31.18 percent. Operating margin for the quarter stood at negative 18.32 percent as compared to a negative 51.21 percent for the previous year period.

Operating loss for the quarter was $103.21 million, compared with an operating loss of $220.57 million in the previous year period.

However, the adjusted operating loss for the quarter stood at $103.93 million compared to operating loss of $53.77 million in prior year period.

Anthony Petrello, Nabors chairman and chief executive officer, commented, "I am disappointed that our first quarter results were well short of our expectations as downtime and extraordinary costs more than offset the positive impact of a second consecutive quarter of increased revenue. This shortfall consisted primarily of lost revenues and higher costs related to the accelerated inspection and recertification of key structural components on a majority of the rigs in our largest international market and, to a lesser extent, higher than expected rig reactivation and relocation costs due to the rapid increase in demand for our U.S. lower 48 rigs."