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Biggest OFS Cos. See O&G Drilling on the Rise Intl, Less So in US

It’s earnings season, the time when publicly traded companies publish their latest quarterly (and in this case, annual) financial statements–for 4Q22 and all of 2022. Three of the biggest oilfield services (OFS) companies in the world–SLB (formerly Schlumberger), Halliburton, and Baker Hughes–have now issued their quarterly updates. And all three have a common theme: Expect more drilling internationally in 2023, especially in the Middle East and Latin America, but expect about the same amount of drilling (or less) in the U.S. this year.
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Schlumberger Changes Name to SLB, Hoping to Leave Oil Past Behind

New Schlumberger (now SLB) company logo

Some companies seem to be destined to make fatal marketing errors. The latest example: Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay), which happens to be the world’s largest oilfield services company (OFS). Schlumberger announced yesterday it is caving to the crazies and changing its name to its stock ticker symbol, SLB, in a bid to focus on the “low- and zero-carbon energy” future. The company still plans “to drive innovation, decarbonization and performance for the oil and gas industry,” but you know, oil is yesterday, and zero-carbon is where it’s at now, baby. We predict this change in focus will be a disaster for the company.
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Oilfield Service Cos. Say Drilling is Now in Multi-Year Up-Cycle

The world’s (and North America’s) largest oilfield services companies, including Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes, are all saying the same thing: Drillers are getting ready to drill more this year. Some sub-sectors of the drilling market, like completions, are already “sold out” according to Halliburton. Good luck to drillers who want to add more completions crews right now. Prices are going up for fracking fleets and other services offered by OFS companies.
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Schlumberger Drills CNX’s 3 Longest Wells; Declares O&G “Supercycle”

Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. On Friday Schlumberger issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 earnings report, holding a conference call to discuss results. Of particular interest to us was information detailing Schlumberger’s work for M-U driller CNX Resources.
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Schlumberger Introduces Self-Steering Directional Drilling

“Look ma, no hands on the steering wheel!” Forget about self-steering/self-driving cars. That’s yesterday. Now we have self-steering (or “autonomous”) directional drilling–oil and gas drilling that steers itself using artificial intelligence. Brought to you by the largest oilfield services company in the world: Schlumberger.
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Schlumberger Sells & Exits U.S. Fracking Business – End of Shale?

When the world’s largest oilfield services (OFS) company, Schlumberger, decides to call it quits in the fracking business, you have to ask the question, Is this the end of shale? (It’s not, but that’s what reporters at Bloomberg are hinting.) Yesterday Schlumberger announced a deal to turn over the keys to their U.S. and Canadian fracking business to Liberty Oilfield Services in return for 37% interest in Liberty.
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Moody’s Says Smaller Oilfield Services Cos. in Trouble from Debt

Moody’s Investor Service is sounding the alarm with respect to oilfield services (OFS) companies and debt. In a publication for Moody’s clients issued earlier this week, analysts said OFS companies don’t have the means to pay back towering debt in the short term, and “limited options” when it comes to raising equity to improve liquidity. What it means is this: Companies like Schlumberger, Halliburton, and Baker Hughes a GE Company are heading for rough waters. However, the biggies, like the three we’ve mentioned, will probably be OK. But their smaller competitors, according to Moody’s, may not be OK.
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Schlumberger Donates $14M in Software to Youngstown State Univ

Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. Here in the U.S., the #3 company on speed dial for drilling is Baker Hughes, still (for now) owned by GE. We mention all that because most folks recognize the names Halliburton and Baker Hughes, yet are often not familiar with the hard-to-pronounce Schlumberger. Even so, Schlumberger has a big presence in the Marcellus/Utica region. In a gesture of “giving back,” the company has just made a VERY generous grant of $14 million of its own proprietary software used for modeling and assessing risk associated with drilling new wells, to Youngstown State University. Most major E&Ps use Schlumberger’s software, even if they don’t use Schlumberger itself to do the actual drilling. While at first glance the gift of software may seem self-serving, it’s not. This gift means that students will be trained on the latest and greatest software that they will need to know, coming right out of college. It helps the kids gain a valuable skill, making them more employable once they hit the workforce…
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Weatherford Sells U.S. Fracking Business to Schlumberger for $430M

Schlumberger is the world’s largest oilfield services (OFS) company. Weatherford International is the world’s fourth largest OFS company. They both have operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. We’ve posted a number of stories about Weatherford’s financial troubles–and seemingly inevitable march toward bankruptcy (see our stories here). However, Weatherford got a reprieve from its much larger competitor. In March 2017, Schlumberger and Weatherford announced they had formed a joint venture called OneStim, “to deliver completions products and services for the development of unconventional resource plays in the United States and Canada land markets. The joint venture will offer one of the broadest multistage completions portfolios in the market combined with one of the largest hydraulic fracturing fleets in the industry” (see Schlumberger Throws Weatherford a Lifeline, Challenges Halliburton). However, in December, Weatherford signaled they want to/need to sell off parts of the company in order to claw their way out of a $7.9 billion debt hole (see Weatherford Looks to Sell Off Pieces of the Business). First on the chopping block? The JV with Schlumberger. Weatherford announced in late December that instead of a joint venture with Schlumberger, they’re just going to sell their U.S. pressure pumping and pump-down perforating assets to Schlumberger for $430 million in cold, hard cash. In other words, Weatherford has just exited the fracking business in the U.S….
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Schlumberger Throws Weatherford a Lifeline, Challenges Halliburton

Schlumberger is the world’s largest oilfield services (OFS) company. Weatherford International is the world’s fourth largest OFS company. They both have operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. We’ve posted a number of stories about Weatherford’s financial troubles–and seemingly inevitable march toward bankruptcy (see our stories here). However, Weatherford may have just gotten a reprieve from its much larger competitor. On Friday, Schlumberger and Weatherford announced they have formed a joint venture called OneStim, “to deliver completions products and services for the development of unconventional resource plays in the United States and Canada land markets. The joint venture will offer one of the broadest multistage completions portfolios in the market combined with one of the largest hydraulic fracturing fleets in the industry.” Hmmm. Interesting. Here’s why. The world’s second largest OFS company is Halliburton. However, Halliburton is the world’s largest fracking company. The media is universally claiming the Schlumberg/Weatherford jv is squarely aimed at overtaking Halliburton to become the world’s largest fracking service. Can they do it? Another interesting observation: Earlier this month Mark McCollum, who had been Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Halliburton left to become the CEO of Weatherford (see Halliburton CFO Leaves to Become Weatherford CEO). We don’t think it’s a coincidence that Weatherford is now making a play to best its larger rival Halliburton, leveraging McCollum’s knowledge of how Halliburton became king of fracking. Two thoughts on the Sclumberger/Weatherford hook-up: (1) it keeps Weatherford out of bankruptcy by infusing $535 million of cash, (2) We think it may be the prelude to a full-out sale of Weatherford to Schlumberger down the road…
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Schlumberger 4Q16 & Full Year 2016 Results – Swings to Net Loss

The largest oilfield services (OFS) company in the world, Schlumberger, issued their fourth quarter and full year 2016 report on Friday. Schlumberger has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. They drill and frack for many companies in our neck of the woods. (Other large OFS companies active in the M/U include Halliburton and Baker Hughes.) Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard said since the price of oil and gas is moving higher, his company will also increase the prices they charge E&Ps (exploration and production companies) in 2017. OFS companies have been hammered over the past couple of years to lower their prices. Such “price concessions” are now coming to an end. We can understand why. Revenue for Schlumberger in 2016 fell by 22% over 2015, and the company swung from making $2 billion in profit in 2015 to losing $1.7 billion in 2016. Ouch. Here’s the update…
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Schlumberger 3Q16: Turns a Profit, but Profits Down 82% Y/Y

SchlumbergerSchlumberger, the world’s biggest oilfield services company, issued their third quarter update yesterday. It was a mixed bag, with some good news and some not-so-good news. Like Halliburton, their chief rival, Schlumberger turned a profit in 3Q16 (see Halliburton 3Q16 Earnings Surprise: Turns a Profit!). Halliburton made a measly $7 million in 3Q16, while Schlumberger made $176 million. Halliburton went from losing $3.2 billion in 2Q16 to making a $7M profit, while Schlumberger went from losing $2.2 billion in 2Q16 to making $176M. However, if you look at the third quarter for each company compared with a year earlier, Halliburton’s 3Q16 profit was up 113% from 3Q15 to 3Q16 (going from -$53M to +$7M), while Sclumbeger’s profit went down 82% (from +$989M to +$176M). Hence the headlines in the financial press are trumpeting Schlumberger’s 82% decrease. The further good news for Schlumberger is that they maintained their workforce at around 100,000 employees–after having previously axed 50,000 jobs over the past couple of years. CEO Paal Kibsgaard said the o&g industry hit the bottom of the cycle in 2Q16 and Schlumberger (and by extension the industry) “stabilized” in 3Q16…
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Schlumberger 2Q16: The Worst is Over, Drilling on the Upswing

SchlumbergerEarlier this week MDN brought you the second quarter update from Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services company (see Halliburton 2Q16: $3.2B Loss, Lays Off Another 5K, Thx to Obama DOJ). One of the (many) things said by Halliburton in their update is that it appears to them that the worst is now over–that drillers are beginning to drill again. Yesterday the worlds largest oilfield services company, Schlumberger, agreed. Sclumberger issued their 2Q16 update. The big news is that both Schlumberger and Halliburton have “called the bottom” of the oil and gas market. When they both agree, it’s a sure thing. Like Halliburton, Schlumberger also lost big money in 2Q16–$2.16 billion (vs. a $3.2 billion loss for Halliburton). In 2Q15 Schlumberger made $1.12 billion in profit. What a difference a year makes! At least we’re now turning it around. Here’s the Schlumberger 2Q16 update…
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Schlumberger Drilling Marcellus Test Wells in WV for DOE’s NETL

SchlumbergerSchlumberger is the largest oilfield services company in the world. Based in Houston, the company doesn’t do all that much work in the Marcellus/Utica region. The company issued it’s first quarter 2016 update yesterday. We typically don’t cover it here on MDN because they’re not heavily involved in our neck of the woods, but we did spot a reference to the Marcellus Shale in the update, which we’ve extracted for you below…
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Oilfield Services Co. Schlumberger Completes Merger with Cameron

Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. Halliburton is #2, and not even close in size. As we reported yesterday, the Obama Dept. of Justice is opposing Halliburton’s merger plan to buy out Baker Hughes (see Obama DOJ Sues to Block Halliburton/Baker Hughes Merger). In a similar move, Schlumberger made a bid for Cameron International–a leading provider of flow equipment products, systems and services to worldwide oil and gas companies. While the DOJ is giving Halliburton/BH the stink eye, they approved the Schlumberger/Cameron deal in near record time. Last week Schlumberger completed the merger and the two are now one company…
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