SLB

What does SLB own?

SLB owns the full oilfield services portfolio built under the Schlumberger name plus acquired businesses including M-I SWACO, WesternGeco, Cameron systems, and ChampionX, organized into four operating divisions.

Is SLB publicly traded?

Yes. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker SLB and is a component of the S&P 500.

Who founded SLB?

Brothers Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, who founded the company in Paris in 1926. Conrad was a physics professor whose resistivity research became the wireline logging industry.

Where is SLB headquartered?

Houston, Texas, with principal corporate offices also in Paris and The Hague. The legal entity, SLB N.V., is incorporated in Curaçao.

How many brands does SLB own?

Six or more market-facing brands, though nearly everything is marketed under the SLB master brand since 2022. Legacy names like Schlumberger, M-I SWACO, WesternGeco, and ChampionX persist on products and entities.

Who owns SLB?

Public shareholders. Institutional investors and index funds hold the vast majority of shares, with no controlling owner.

Is SLB still called Schlumberger?

Legally the entity is SLB N.V. and it markets itself exclusively as SLB since October 2022. The Schlumberger name survives on legacy entities, older contracts, and some product lines.

Conrad Schlumberger was a physics professor at the École des Mines in Paris who believed electrical resistivity measurements could map underground formations. With his brother Marcel handling the business side, they founded the company in 1926 and ran the first electric well log in Alsace in 1927. That single measurement technique founded the entire wireline logging industry.

The American oil market pulled the company across the Atlantic through the 1930s and 1940s. Schlumberger Limited listed on the NYSE in 1962, and the following decades made it synonymous with oilfield technology: it set the standard in logging while expanding into drilling, seismic, and pumping services.

Major deals assembled the modern portfolio. The Dowell pumping business came early, followed by the 1999 merger of Sedco Forex into Transocean, later spun off. WesternGeco added seismic capability. The 2010 acquisition of Smith International for $11 billion brought M-I SWACO fluids and drill bits, and the 2015 Cameron International purchase for $14.8 billion added blowout preventers and production equipment.

The 2014 to 2016 oil price crash and the 2020 pandemic collapse tested the model, forcing large workforce cuts and a strategic rethink. Olivier Le Peuch, a company veteran since 1987, became CEO in 2019 and steered the firm toward digital, decarbonization, and what it calls new energy systems.

October 2022 brought the formal name change to SLB and a reorganization into four divisions. In July 2025 the company completed its acquisition of ChampionX in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $7.8 billion, adding production chemicals and artificial lift to the Production Systems division.

Fiscal 2025 revenue was $35.7 billion, down 2 percent year on year as lower activity in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and offshore Africa outweighed $1.5 billion from ChampionX. The company returned $4 billion to shareholders and announced plans to return more than $4 billion in 2026, including a 3.5 percent dividend increase.

SLB's stated ambition is net zero by 2050 across Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, with a 2030 interim target of reducing operational emissions 30 percent and fuel combustion 50 percent from a 2019 baseline. It reports progress through annual disclosures and CDP submissions.

The honest complication is that its core business enables oil and gas production, and its largest customers include the national oil companies driving continued fossil expansion. It has invested in transition technologies: carbon capture projects, geothermal services, lithium extraction, and hydrogen systems.

On ethics, the company's record includes the 2015 sanctions guilty plea and ongoing scrutiny of its Russia operations, detailed in the controversy section below.

In 2015 subsidiary Schlumberger Oilfield Holdings pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate US sanctions on Iran and Sudan between 2004 and 2010, paying a $232.7 million penalty, the largest sanctions fine of its kind at the time. The company accepted responsibility and implemented compliance reforms.

SLB's Russia presence has generated sustained criticism since 2022. While most Western energy companies exited, SLB remained, saying it was bound by contracts and employee obligations. It announced in March 2023 that it had halted new investment and technology deployment in Russia. Ukraine's anti-corruption agency designated SLB an international sponsor of war, a classification the company disputes.

Like all oilfield contractors, it faces periodic environmental enforcement over spills, emissions, and waste handling at field operations, resolved through regulatory settlements.