Schlumberger Rebrands to SLB in Pivot Toward Energy Transition

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Taking a page out of the books of companies such as Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) (Stavanger, Norway) (formerly Statoil) and TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) (Courbevoie, France) (formerly Total), oilfield services provider Schlumberger is now known as SLB (NYSE:SLB) (Houston, Texas, and Paris, France) in a nod toward its goal to delve deeper into digital services and clean-energy technologies.

The move comes only a weekend after the company on Friday reported its strongest quarterly profit since 2015, with net income of $907 million, compared with $550 million a year ago. Total revenue rose 28% to $7.48 billion. International revenue was up 26% from a year ago, while North American revenue was up 37%.

After reporting these results on Friday, on Monday, the company announced that it had renamed itself SLB, like its stock ticker. SLB's incorporation of more clean-energy technologies has been some years in the making. According to a company press release, in 2020, SLB launched its New Energy business "to explore partnerships and opportunities in low-carbon and carbon-neutral technologies," and in 2021, it became the first company in the energy services industry to commit to a net-zero target inclusive of Scope 3 emissions from the use of its technologies.

Katharina Beumelburg, chief strategy and sustainability officer at SLB, said, "Our new identity boldly symbolizes our ambition to accelerate the energy transition with sustainability at the center of everything we do."

Industrial Info is tracking more than $3.8 billion in projects involving SLB throughout the world, most of which involve oil and gas extraction. However, a few projects in the U.S. by the company's New Energy business point toward the new direction being taken by the rebranded company.

Chief among these is a carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) undertaking in California by Chevron (NYSE:CVX) (San Ramon, California). While the project remains in the early planning stages, it involves constructing direct air-capture trains to capture and extract 300,000 metric tons per year of carbon dioxide. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) (Redmond, Washington) also is a partner in the project, which potentially could kick off in 2023 for completion in 2025. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Production Project Database can click here for the full report.

Other U.S. projects involve lithium extraction for use in technologies such as electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems, which frequently accompany solar power installations. The first part of the project for Pure Energy Metals Limited (Vancouver, Canada), which is presently under construction in Nevada, is for a pilot lithium-processing plant to produce 65.3 tons per year of lithium to demonstrate the viability of the brine extracting and processing technologies to be used in a larger plant. The new technologies are designed to be more efficient, with less environmental disruption than conventional extraction technologies. The pilot plant is set to be completed later this year and, all being well, could pave the way toward a full-scale plant using the technology to produce more than 10,000 tons of lithium per year. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Metals & Minerals Project Database can click here for the report on the pilot plant and here for the full-scale plant.

While the company makes its clean-energy transition, its bread-and-butter projects still appear to be traditional oil and gas extraction. Among the largest projects involving SLB is TotalEnergies' Phase I drilling program in the Lake Albert Field of Uganda. The project entails drilling approximately 300 production and water injection wells that are more than 2,000 meters deep. The program is expected to be completed in late 2025. Subscribers can click here for the full report.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).