Nature of Operations

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Nature of Operations [Abstract]

Nature of Operations

Note 1    Nature of Operations

Nabors is the largest land drilling contractor in the world and one of the largest land well-servicing and workover contractors in the United States and Canada:

• We actively market approximately 499 land drilling rigs for oil and gas land drilling operations in the U.S. Lower 48 states, Alaska, Canada, South America, Mexico, the Middle East, the Far East, the South Pacific, Russia and Africa.

• We actively market approximately 581 rigs for land well-servicing and workover work in the United States and approximately 174 rigs for land well-servicing and workover work in Canada.

We are also a leading provider of offshore platform workover and drilling rigs, and actively market 39 platform, 12 jackup and four barge rigs in the United States, including the Gulf of Mexico, and multiple international markets.

In addition to the foregoing services:

• We provide hydraulic fracturing, cementing, nitrogen and acid pressure pumping services with over 730,000 hydraulic horsepower in key basins throughout the United States and Canada.

• We offer a wide range of ancillary well-site services, including engineering, transportation and disposal, construction, maintenance, well logging, directional drilling, rig instrumentation, data collection and other support services in select U.S. and international markets.

• We manufacture and lease or sell top drives for a broad range of drilling applications, directional drilling systems, rig instrumentation and data collection equipment, pipeline handling equipment and rig reporting software.

• We have a 51% ownership interest in a joint venture in Saudi Arabia, which owns and actively markets nine rigs in addition to the rigs we lease to the joint venture.

• We have invested in oil and gas exploration, development and production activities through both our wholly owned subsidiaries and our oil and gas joint ventures in which we hold 49-50% ownership interests.

The majority of our business is conducted through our various Contract Drilling operating segments, which include our drilling, well-servicing, fluid logistics and workover operations, on land and offshore. Our hydraulic fracturing and downhole surveying services are included in our Pressure Pumping operating segment. Our oil and gas exploration, development and production operations are included in our Oil and Gas operating segment, or in discontinued operations in some cases. Our operating segments engaged in drilling technology and top drive manufacturing, directional drilling, rig instrumentation and software, and construction operations are aggregated in our Other Operating Segments.

The consolidated financial statements and related footnotes are presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”). Certain reclassifications have been made to prior periods to conform to the current period presentation, with no effect on our consolidated financial position, results of operations or cash flows.