Schlumberger Limited is the world's largest oilfield services company. Schlumberger employs
approximately 126,000 people representing more than 140 nationalities working in more
than 85 countries. Its principal offices are in Paris, Houston, London, and the Hague.
History
Schlumberger was founded in 1926 by French brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger as
the Société de prospection électrique. The company recorded the first-ever electrical
resistivity well log in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, France in 1927. Today Schlumberger supplies
the petroleum industry with services such as seismic acquisition and processing, formation
evaluation, well testing and directional drilling, well cementing and stimulation, artificial
lift, well completions, flow assurance and consulting, and software and information management.
The company is also involved in the groundwater extraction and carbon capture and storage
industries. The brothers had experience conducting geophysical
surveys in countries such as Romania, Canada, Serbia, South Africa, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo and the United States. The new company sold electrical-measurement mapping
services, and recorded the first-ever electrical resistivity well log in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn,
France in 1927. The company quickly expanded, logging its first well in the U.S. in 1929,
in Kern County, California. In 1935, the Schlumberger Well Surveying Corporation was founded in
Houston, later evolving into Schlumberger Well Services, and finally Schlumberger Wireline
& Testing. Schlumberger invested heavily in research, inaugurating the Schlumberger-Doll
Research Center in Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1948, contributing to the development of
a number of new logging tools. In 1956, Schlumberger Limited was incorporated as a holding company
for all Schlumberger businesses, which by now included American testing and production
company Johnston Testers. Over the years, Schlumberger continued to
expand its operations and acquisitions. In 1960, Dowell Schlumberger, which specialized
in pumping services for the oil industry, was formed. In 1962, Schlumberger Limited
became listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That same year, Schlumberger purchased Daystrom,
an electronic instruments manufacturer in South Boston, Virginia which was making furniture
by the time the division was sold to Sperry & Hutchinson in 1971. 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 became a subsidiary
of Schlumberger Limited. Schlumberger established the first international
data links with e-mail in 1981. In 1983, Schlumberger opened their Cambridge Research Center in
Cambridge, England and in 2012 it was renamed the Schlumberger Gould Research Center after
the company's former CEO Andrew Gould. The SEDCO drilling rig company and half of
Dowell of North America were acquired in 1984, resulting in the creation of 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.
In the 1970s, the company's top executives in North America were relocated to New York
City. In 1987, Schlumberger completed their purchases
of Neptune, Bosco and Cori, and Allmess. That same year, National Semiconductor acquired
Fairchild Semiconductor from Schlumberger for $122 million. In 1991, Schlumberger acquired
PRAKLA-SEISMOS, and pioneered the use of geosteering to plan the drill path in horizontal wells.
Schlumberger acquired software company GeoQuest Systems in 1992. With the purchase came the
conversion of SINet to TCP/IP and www capability. In the 1990s Schlumberger bought out the petroleum
division, AEG meter, and ECLIPSE reservoir study team Intera Technologies Corp. A joint
venture between Schlumberger and Cable & Wireless resulted with the creation of Omnes, which
then handled 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 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.
In 2000, 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. Sedco Forex was spun off, and merged with
Transocean Drilling company in 2000. In 2001, 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. The cards division was divested through an
IPO to form Axalto, which later merged with 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.
In 2004, Schlumberger Business Consulting was launched. Based in Paris, it is the company's
management consultancy arm. In 2005, Schlumberger purchased Waterloo Hydrogeologic,
which was followed by several other groundwater industry related companies, such as Westbay
Instruments, and Van Essen Instruments. Also that year, Schlumberger relocated its U.S.
corporate offices from New York to Houston. In 2006, Schlumberger purchased the remaining
30% of WesternGeco from Baker Hughes for US$2.4 billion. Also that year, the Schlumberger-Doll Research
Center was relocated to a newly built research facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts to replace
the Ridgefield, Connecticut research center. The facility joins the other research centers
operated by the company in Cambridge, England; Moscow, Russia; Stavanger, Norway; and Dhahran,
Saudi Arabia. In 2010, the acquisition of Smith International
in an all stock deal valued at $11.3 billion was announced. The sale price is 45.84-a-share
price was 37.5 percent higher than Smith closing price on 18 February 2010. The deal is the
biggest acquisition in Schlumberger history. The merger was completed on August 27, 2010.
Also announced in 2010 were Schlumberger plans to acquire Geoservices, a French-based company
specializing in energy services, in a deal valued at $1.1 billion, including debt.
Environmental record In 2009, Newsweek released their "Green Rankings"
a ranking of the 500 largest corporations on track records on a number of environmental
issues. Schlumberger was ranked 118th out of 500 overall, and 3rd out of 31 in their
industry. Newsweek remarked that to mitigate global warming Schlumberger has invested in
carbon sequestration which involves long-term storage of CO2 and that the company's seismic
survey ships are 20% to 25% more fuel-efficient than those of other seismic contractors from
using fuels that emit less pollution and towing equipment that creates less drag on the vessels.
Radioactive sources In 2006, a radioactive canister imported by
Schlumberger was recovered in the Western Australian outback desert. The canister had
been lost in November 2005 by the company's transport partner, when the improperly secured
container fell off the trailer on which it was being transported.
In 2010, the Aberdeen Sheriff court fined Schlumberger Oilfield UK £300,000 for losing
a radioactive source on the rig floor on the Ensco 101 mobile drilling rig in the North
Sea for 4 hours. Spills
In 2009, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined Chesapeake Appalachia LLC
and Schlumberger Technology Corp. more than $15,500 each for a hydrochloric acid spill
in February 2009 at Chesapeake's Chancellor natural gas well site in Asylum Township,
Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Officials said the leak did not contaminate groundwater.
Brownfields In 2006, as the current owner of a facility
in Pickens, South Carolina, Schlumberger agreed to pay $11.8 million to federal and state
agencies for a problem caused by the previous owner, Sangamo-Weston, a capacitor manufacturing
plant. The cause of the problem was from polychlorinated biphenyls released into the environment by
Sangamo-Weston from 1955 to 1987. According to the Justice Department's Environment and
Natural Resources Division, an additional agreement by Schlumberger to purchase and
remove dams will directly improve the Twelvemile Creek, South Carolina ecosystem and provide
significant environmental benefits for the affected communities.
Deepwater Horizon Schlumberger performed wireline logging on
the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. A Schlumberger standby
crew had been released by BP and left the rig earlier on the same day of the Deepwater
Horizon explosion. See also
List of oilfield service companies
References
External links Schlumberger website
Schlumberger from the Handbook of Texas Online "Schlumberger, Smith Merger News."