Baker Hughes shares fall after big earnings miss
An operator for Baker Hughes conducts a wireline survey on a Chesapeake Energy natural gas rig in the North Texas Barnett Shale near Burleson, Texas.

Baker Hughes shares have suffered mightily over the past year, plunging 33 percent, and CEO Martin Craighead said in a statement there could be more trouble ahead.

The company reported a first-quarter earnings per share loss of $1.58, much larger the expected loss of 34 cents. Revenue came in $2.67 billion, also below estimates.

Baker Hughes ' stock rose about 2.5 percent Wednesday after the oilfield services giant posted a much bigger-than-expected quarterly loss.

"In the second quarter, we forecast the North America rig count to fall 30 percent compared to the first quarter average. For the second half of the year, we project the U.S. rig count will begin to stabilize, although we do not expect activity to meaningfully increase in 2016. Conversely, the international rig count is predicted to drop steadily through the end of the year as we see limited new projects in the pipeline," he said.



The results from Baker Hughes, which is to be bought by bigger rival Halliburton , come three days ahead of a deadline set by the companies to get regulatory approval for the deal.

BHI in the last year

— CNBC's Juan Aruego and Reuters contributed to this report.