Schlumberger

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For other uses, see Schlumberger (disambiguation).

Schlumberger Limited

Type	Public (NYSE: SLB)
Founded	1927
Headquarters	Operates in 80+ countries. Incorporated in the Netherlands Antilles with principal offices in Houston, Paris and The Hague.
Key people	Chairman & CEO: Andrew Gould EVP & CFO: Simon Ayat CIO: Sophie Zurquiyah CTO: Ashok Belani
Industry	Oilfield Services
Products	Oil field services
Revenue	US$23.28 billion (2007)
Employees	80,000+ of 140+ nationalities
Website	www.slb.com

Schlumberger Limited is the world's largest oilfield services corporation operating in approximately 80 countries, with about 80,000 people of 140 nationalities. Schlumberger supplies a wide range of products and services from seismic acquisition and processing; formation evaluation; well testing and directional drilling to well cementing and stimulation; artificial lift and well completions; and consulting, software and information management. Schlumberger also provides similar products and services for the groundwater industry.

1 Pronunciation of the name
2 Business
3 History
4 Environmental Record
5 Management
6 References
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Pronunciation of the name

The company name is that of its eponymous founders, the French Alsatian Schlumberger brothers. It is pronounced [ʃlʌmbʊɹˈʒeɪ] "shlum-behr-ZHAY".

[edit] Business

Operating revenue in 2007 was US $19.23 billion with a market capitalization as of January 31, 2007, of US $74.5 billion.[1]

[edit] History

Schlumberger Limited began life as the Société de Prospection Électrique (Electric Prospecting Company) founded in 1926 by Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger. Prior to founding their company, the brothers had worked conducting geophysical surveys in countries such as Romania, Canada, Serbia, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States. The newly founded SPE (not to be confused with the Society of Petroleum Engineers) sold electrical-measurement mapping services, and quickly began expanding. The company recorded the first electrical resistivity well log in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, France in 1927, and logged their first well in the US (in Kern County, California) in 1929.

In 1934, the Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation was founded. This was later to become Schlumberger Well Services (and later Schlumberger Wireline & Testing). 1940 saw the company move its headquarters to the US oil capital, Houston, Texas. The next few decades brought numerous breakthroughs in Schlumberger's logging technology offerings, including the Microlog tool, Laterolog system, and Microlaterolog tool, the latter designed to measure resistivity near the borehole. The Ridgefield, Connecticut Research Center (Schlumberger-Doll Research or SDR) was inaugurated in 1948.

In 1956, the company known as Schlumberger Limited was officially set up in Curaçao as a holding company for all Schlumberger businesses. The American testing and production company Johnston Testers was acquired this year as well. 1960 marked the formation of the well-known Dowell Schlumberger (50% Schlumberger, 50% Dow Chemical), which specialized in pumping services for the oil industry. Two years later, Schlumberger Limited became listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Schlumberger purchased 50% of Forex in 1964 and merged it with 50% of Languedocienne to create the Neptune Drilling Company. The first computerized reservoir analysis, SARABAND, was introduced in 1970. The remaining 50% of Forex was acquired the following year; Neptune was renamed Forex Neptune Drilling Company. In 1979, Fairchild Camera and Instrument (including Fairchild Semiconductor), became a subsidiary of Schlumberger Limited.

The Schlumberger Cambridge Research Centre, designed by Michael Hopkins and Partners was opened in 1985.

Continuing the trend of supporting high-technology solutions, Schlumberger quickly integrated e-mail into their business model, establishing the first international data links with e-mail in 1981. In 1983, Schlumberger opened their Cambridge Research Center in Cambridge, England.

The SEDCO drilling rig company and half of Dowell of North America were acquired in 1984, resulting in the creation of another well-known Schlumberger trademark, the Anadrill drilling segment, a combination of Dowell and The Analysts' drilling segments. Forex Neptune was merged with SEDCO to create the Sedco Forex Drilling Company the following year, when Schlumberger purchased Merlin and 50% of GECO.

Schlumberger's Information Network, or SINet, launched in 1985, is the world's second largest internal corporate network and the first commercial ARPANet-based intranet.

In 1987, Schlumberger completed their purchases of Neptune (North America), Bosco and Cori (Italy), and Allmess (Germany). That same year, National Semiconductor acquired Fairchild Semiconductor from Schlumberger for $122 million, and the domain name www.slb.com was registered by the company. In 1991, Schlumberger acquired PRAKLA-SEISMOS, and pioneered the use of geosteering to plan the drill path in horizontal wells.

Schlumberger acquired the software company GeoQuest Systems, Inc. in 1992. With the purchase came the conversion of SINet to TCP/IP and www capability. The remainder of the decade saw Schlumberger buy out the petroleum division, AEG meter, and ECLIPSE reservoir study team Intera Technologies Corp. A joint venture between Schlumberger and Cable & Wireless plc saw the creation of Omnes, which today handles all of Schlumberger's internal IT business. Oilphase and Camco International were also purchased.

In 1999, Schlumberger and Smith International created a joint venture, M-I L.L.C., the world's largest drilling fluids (or mud) company. The company consists of 60% Smith International, and 40% Schlumberger. Since the joint venture was prohibited by a 1994 antitrust consent decree barring Smith from selling or combining their fluids business with certain other companies, including Schlumberger, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. found Smith International Inc. and Schlumberger Ltd. guilty of criminal contempt and fined each company $750,000 and placed each company on five years probation. Both companies also agreed to pay a total of $13.1 million, representing a full disgorgement of all of the joint venture's profits during the time the companies were in contempt.[2]

At the turn of the 21st century, the Geco-Prakla division was merged with Western Geophysical to create the seismic contracting company WesternGeco, of which Schlumberger held a 70% stake, the remaining 30% belonging to competitor Baker Hughes. Under new business policy, the company got rid of its famous brand names in the oilfield service industry viz, Anadrill, Dowell, GeoQuest, Geco-Prakla, Wireline & Testing in order to promote and sell its oil & gas services under the single trading name of Schlumberger Oilfield Services (OFS). Also that year, Sedco Forex was spun off, and merged with Transocean Drilling company.

The following year, Schlumberger acquired the IT consultancy company Sema plc for $5.2 billion. The company was an Athens 2004 Summer Olympics partner, but Schlumberger's venture into IT consultancy did not pay off, and divestiture of Sema to Atos Origin was completed that year for $1.5 billion. That same year, the Cards division was divested through an IPO to form Axalto, which later merged with its competitor Gemplus to form Gemalto, and the Messaging Solutions unit was spun off and merged with Taral Networks to form Airwide Solutions. In 2003 the Automated Test Equipment group, part of the 1979 Fairchild Semiconductor acquisition, was spun off to NPTest Holding, which later sold it to Credence.

On January 10, 2005 Schlumberger purchased Waterloo Hydrogeologic,^[1] which was followed by several other groundwater industry related companies, such as Westbay Instruments, and Van Essen Instruments.

In late 2006, the corporate head office moved from its previous location in New York back to Houston, Texas. In 2006, a 2 for 1 stock split was announced, effective as of March 1, 2006.

On April 21, 2006, Schlumberger purchased the remaining 30% stake in WesternGeco from Baker Hughes for US$2.4 billion.

In 2006, Schlumberger built a new research facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts to replace the Ridgefield, Connecticut research center. The move was completed at the end of 2006. The new facility joins the other research centers operated by the company in Cambridge, England; Moscow, Russia; Stavanger, Norway; and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.

[edit] Environmental Record

Schlumberger has an environmental standard they uphold throughout their work sites, but the business contributes to environmental health concerns. To combat contamination Schlumberger has set up planning models and hired experts to decrease damage to the environment. The experts have many tools to help assess risk to environment and identify the best way to use the environment.^[2]

With the help of experts, Schlumberger has set up systems to reduce damage, using less chemicals, and saving money by cutting back on equipment. The OneSTEP system is one such system. ^[3]

In an effort to diminish the equipment on sites and thus the resulting effect on the ground, Schlumberger as well as Cisco Systems and Intel Team have created a digital oilfield. The use of wireless service will enable workers to drill using communication through the wireless sensors.^[4]

The cost of operations was evident in 2006, when Schlumberger agreed to pay $11.8 million to federal and state agencies for damaging a fishery and a natural habitat. The cause of the problem was from polychlorinated biphenyls released into the environment by Sangamo-Weston from 1955 to 1987. Schlumberger assumed the liabilities of Sangamo associated with the PCB contamination in a series of corporate transactions that took place between 1990 and 2003. In addition to paying for solution to this problem, the company is also using $8 to $10 million to remove hydroelectric dams in Twelvemile Creek and restore the stream.^[5]