Even while its financial results were better, earnings of oilfield service company, Schlumberger Ltd.'s (SLB) for the first-quarter of this year went down by 28 per cent.

The drop was caused by the poor performance of the company in the North American market and was much less than last year's performance.

Talking about the earnings, Chairman and Chief Executive of SLB said that even with current situation, the company has managed to show strong performance in North American and in the Middle East region. In Asia it did well.

He said that the current position of the company has offset balanced its decline in North Sea and Russia. The decline was the outcome of the bad weather in the region and the lack of operational efficiency.

Companies like SLG and Halliburton Co. (HAL) were severely hit with the decline in the drilling prices and also lack of drilling activities. While the companies have tried ramp up their activity, the recession did have an impact on their results.

Even with this, the analysts expect the things to be better during this year. The company is also optimistic.