Smith International to Pull out of Iran, Sudan

Smith International, an oilfield services company set to be taken over by industry leader Schlumberger, said on Monday it was actively pursuing the termination of all its activities in Iran and Sudan.

In a filing with U.S. financial regulators, Houston-based Smith named those two countries and Syria as places where the U.S. government imposed economic sanctions or other restrictions.

Smith said that, via non-U.S. affiliates, it earned about 1% of its $8.2 billion in 2009 revenue from the countries, and they were not "strategically significant" to its worldwide operations.

The company said separately that its restructuring last year, in response to a collapse in North American drilling activity, cost it $58.4 million. This was largely from shedding nearly 15% of its workforce, as Smith ended 2009 with 21,931 full-time employees.

While that was a deeper reduction than some larger rivals made, leading land-driller Nabors Industries revealed last week that it shed a third of its employees in 2009.