Talk:SLB

Pronunciation

Pronunciation - slumber-jayJesse Harris 13:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not simple. The name is a Germanic one, originating in the Alsace area of France. However, the eponymous founders of the company were francophones. So the company's founders were pronouncing a German name with a French accent. Since the company's founding, however, it has gone on to have a presence in many countries, and in some of those countries, certain sounds in the name are pronounced with difficulty; specifically the IPA [y] (French "chute") and the IPA [ʒ] (last sound of "mirage"). So in the those countries, substitutions are made. Cornellier 22:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Very much not simple. In my experience, talking with Texas and Oklahoma oil people who are educated and trying to pronounce it correctly, it's more or less "slum-bur-ʒay", accent on the 3rd syllable; a surprising number of people just can't do "schl" even when they're adept at some other common non-English phonology... And significant number of people pronounce the 2nd syllable like "bear". --studerby 22:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The company, as well as the stock holders, call it "shlum-bur-shay" or "shlum-bar-jay and "Schlum-burger" comes from some MSNBC stock analysit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.114.219.196 (talk) 00:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

According to my experience a large number of people within Schlumberger calls it Sh-lum-be-jaayer with the "b" sound very short. --Jingshen 05:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Many French employees of Schlumberger have taken to pronouncing the "u" as "oo", thus imitating the germanic pronunciation for that part of the word, which then comes out as "shloom-bear-ZHAY". This is frowned upon by the family itself, which wanted very much to avoid confusion between Alsace and Germany, and keeps pronoucing the "um" diphthong as in the French word "un" (I don't know the IPA for this, possibly ũ or ĩ). This makes it very distinctive, but even less pronounceable to other common mortals. Based on this, however, "shlum-bear-zhay" is definitely the closest English approximation, as long as you barely pronounce the "m" and shorten the "bear" syllable. (Note: I am an employee of Schlumberger and I am originally French) Claude 01:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Company editors?

This article reads like it was written by the company. It'd be nice if there were other things presented in the article. --andye — Preceding undated comment added 13:05, 13 November 2006

The article reads like a marketing brochure of the company. We want to know where and how the company evolved and not whether it is going to provide excellent and advanced services or not. Please tell us what were stumbling blocks in establishing the company in remote and hostile locations around the world and not whether these office are "looked upon for inspiration" during the life of the oil field !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.230.248.1 (talk) 14:59, 30 November 2006

• I do not think the company is marketing anything in anyway. I believe that whoever created this article simply copied the contents of this page on the official SLB website: "Schlumberger, Backgrounder". As a result most contents on this article is still the exact same. In fact, I think this discussion should be ended and deleted. --Jingshen 06:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Why should a discussion be ended simply because Jingsen has "found" the true reason for the shabby marketing text on the website. Please stop quoting annual profits in US dollars here as nobody is really wanting to know that through academic sites such as Wikipedia. I am going to report this to the website administrators. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anipilot (talk • contribs) 09:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This discussion occurred Dec 06, when the article was largely a cut & paste of SLB's about-us page. It is typical to give annual profits for public US companies in US dollars. See Microsoft. Cheers, --guyzero | talk 15:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I convinced this company is using Wikipedia to market itself as well ! A company's repute is built through its actions and not words...especially not through a academic learning and information reference such as Wikipedia, the following two paragraphs are just shamefull propaganda. (note the 'we' in the second para)

Competitive Advantage Schlumberger offers its clients four key advantages:

Deep domain knowledge of exploration and production operations gained through 75 years of experience The service industry's longest commitment to technology and innovation through a network of 23 research, development and technology centers A global reach in 80 countries coupled to strong local experience and the diversity in thought, background and knowledge that more that 140 nationalities bring A commitment to excellence in service delivery anytime, anywhere.

Research and Development The company was founded by the two Schlumberger brothers who invented wireline logging as a technique for obtaining downhole data in oil and gas wells. Today, it continues to build on the industry's longest track record of providing leading edge E&P technology to develop new advancements-from reservoir to surface. Schlumberger has always invested significant time and money on research and engineering as a long-term strategy to support and grow its technology leadership. Short-term business cycles do not affect this. In 2005, we invested $505 million in R&D for our oilfield activities. Schlumberger invests more each year in R&D than all other oilfield services companies combined. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anipilot (talk • contribs) 15:07, 30 November 2006

'Surely you jest The largest oilfield services company in the world with 70billion in market cap does not need to market itself on wikipedia. I dont think potential clients navigate through a webclopedia to find contracts... i agree its a lazy editor copying and pasting from SLB's website. feel free to delete/omit/edit as necessary — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.240.104.223 (talk) 00:14, 31 December 2006

Clearly some editing has been done by Schlumberger employees — editing from IPs 163.183.x.x through 163.188.x.x are from inside Schlumberger — but I agree that it sounds more like cut-and-paste editing than self promotion. —Travis ^C/_T\^U 13:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Compare some of the other company articles, e.g. Halliburton. This article needs lots of attention. LeadSongDog 03:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Trim org chart?

Hi! Does it benefit the reader to have the large management listing on this article? I suggest we trim off the Technologies, Areas, and EMS sections and leave just the top managers for brevity and readability. Any thoughts? cheers, --guyzero | talk 02:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Domain Name Error

The article said, "In 1987,...and the domain name www.slb.com was registered by the company" which is not possible since there was no registration of domain names in 1987, nor world wide web. The world wide web was named in May of 1990 according to the world's first web site http://info.cern.ch/ which is still in existence.

So I don't know when slb was registered but it was not in 1987.

Nick Beeson (talk) 18:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've put it back in and added the reference: this comes directly from the company's website. This is an interesting situation, perhaps someone can shed light on what Schlumberger actually registered in 1987? AniRaptor2001 01:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Schlumberger had SINet running back then as a TCP/IP network. It is important to note that Internet ≠ World Wide Web - In other words, the Internet, and ARPANET before it, existed long before the first website came online. "The Web" runs as a service on top of the Internet. In any case, the actual text from Schlumberger's history page is, "Registered slb.com as an Internet domain name". That's slb.com, not www.slb.com, so I've corrected the text of the article to match the actual history. Cheers —Travis^talk 02:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Australia corruption

As I've said before: the following is interesting and probably true; however, the citations do not directly reference Schlumberger, so we cannot say for certain that Schlumberger was committing these infractions. I'm putting it here so we can work on it. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 15:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Luckily it doesn't cost me anything to keep reverting. Geco, if you believe I'm trying to hide any infractions SLB has committed, please see this edit by me. My issue with your contribution is your failure to provide sources that specifically accuse SLB of committing the infractions permitted by the loopholes in the labor laws. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 16:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

To reduce cost's and increase profit's to Schlumberger shareholder's, foreign workers were hired(salary based on cost of living from there home country even when working in Australia. (this is possible as Australian Migration Zone allowed by department of Immigration), to offset their costs, to survive a downturn in the industry and to significantly undercut competitors in bids.

Australia VISA rules were stretched to the limit and were investigated by Department of Immigration and Affairs(DIMA) Australia who found that Schlumberger/Westerngeco sub contractor had been using a loophole in the 457 VISA laws to inadvertently underpay foreign workers. This loophole has now been resolved without compensation to past or present employees and contractors by issuing 456 VISA's.

For Australian citizens working offshore for Schlumberger/WesternGeco seismic department they were deliberately sent out from Australia as Schlumberger/WesternGeco refuses to pay taxes for its Australian employees as they cannot get the tax paid reimbursed back like it is possible for other non-Australian seismic crew working in Australia.

References

Criticism

Schlumberger has been notorious for law violations in various countries. This reflects the difference between proclaimed and real sequence of the Core Values of this company and its management. It has been willfully bringing in illegal workforce in Kazakhstan, as well as regularly smuggling tools and equipment from tax-free projects like Tengiz (TCO) and Karachaganak (KPO) and deviating from tax payments.

Do you have a source for this? AniRaptor2001 (talk) 14:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dalton Boutte

This guy is the president of the company. This article is up for deletion currently. Editors are welcome to comment. Ikip 23:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Schlumberger told BP to shot down the Deepwater Horizon

BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you'll see why.

SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.

SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the "company man" (BP's man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo's scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you're here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB's corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB's expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

6 hours later, the platform explodes.

Pick your jaw up off the floor now. No CBL was run after the pressure tests because the contractor high-tailed it out of there. If this story is true, the company man (who survived) should go to jail for 11 counts of negligent homicide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.142.7 (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

• We can't use any of that. We don't use postings on internet forums as sources. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:09, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

• On the topic of Deepwater Horizon, is it necessary to state in a seperate section of the article that SLB was present on the rig? I think this could simply be listed as another entry in the "Environmental Record" Section of the article. Closetsingle (talk) 21:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Putting it under Environmental Record might imply that Schlumberger was somehow culpable. Plazak (talk) 02:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

This is a fantastic story, and might be recounted in a book or magazine expose in the future. As of right now, it's just hearsay (though probably true), and can't be included here. Rodface (talk) 15:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

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I edited the bit we presently have re Deepwater Horizon to match the source. As is, the item verges on trivia. But perhaps the story above will show up in a RS someday.... --Pete Tillman (talk) 20:57, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Date of Forex Purchase?

This source says that the first Forex was purchased in 1959 and was the company's first large drilling purchase. This is contrary to what is in the article.Americasroof (talk) 17:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Wall Street Journal resource

Oil Firms Face Services Hurdle December 23, 2011 by Sarah Kent, excerpt ...

A lack of capacity in the oil-services sector is likely to hamper exploration and development of new sources of supply at a time of growing demand, and force greater collaboration between state-owned and multinational oil producers and the services sector, industry experts say. Oil-services companies, which include giants such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co., provide the industry with technical and engineering expertise, as well as the equipment and tools needed for exploration and production. Based on current projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA), global oil demand is expected to rise to 90.3 million barrels a day in 2012, slightly above current levels of supply. But much of current production is from mature oil fields, where output has already peaked and is now in decline. This has created a pressing need to find new supplies as the IEA expects oil demand to reach 99 million barrels a day by 2035.

See Supermajor

99.190.85.17 (talk) 07:25, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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Corporate identity

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Schlumberger&oldid=1120574757, placing the new "slb" logo in the infobox, was reverted by User:Stannerbing in their first Wikipedia edit. The rationale was that there should be a new page documenting the new entity, using HP as an example. Unlike Hewlett-Packard, Schlumberger is not defunct; the company is, as of now, still legally incorporated as Schlumberger. I note that a previous attempt to change the logo and other branding information was shot down as sockpuppetry. So, the situation is as follows:

• Schlumberger has changed its public brand identity to SLB (rendered in the logo as "slb"). See https://www.slb.com and https://www.wsj.com/articles/schlumberger-rebrands-as-slb-dropping-family-name-11666613853
• No source indicates that SLB has changed its legal name. For example, an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 2022-11-01 refers to the company in the header as "SCHLUMBERGER N.V. (SCHLUMBERGER LIMITED)" and in the filing text as "Schlumberger Limited('SLB')" https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/87347/000119312522275055/d404523d8k.htm

Thus, the company is the same entity that has been known previously as "Schlumberger Limited", so there is no need to create a new article. I previously updated the related item on the disambiguation page SLB to say

 * SLB, the trade name and ticker symbol of Schlumberger Limited, an energy services company

I propose that Schlumberger should display the current logo of Schlumberger Limited, which is . As to how to refer to the company in the article, I would also propose that "SLB" be used to refer to the current operations of the company, while "Schlumberger" be used to refer to company history and operations before October 2022.

I am going to restore the original logo edit with a link to this discussion. Please discuss here before reverting again. (Note: I am not employed by Schlumberger Limited, SLB, or any company involved in its corporate rebranding, and I am not acting at the direction of SLB or any employee or contractor of SLB). GeoGreg (talk) 23:21, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

(Note for the fans: I first edited this article 18 years ago next week!) GeoGreg (talk) 23:26, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

Rebranding

SLB has tried to rebill itself as a "tech" company for "decarbonization"—most press and even 3rd party materials now stick to this line. We shouldn't modify the page or let those sources obscure SLB's real business. DenverCoder9 (talk) 19:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Edit Request – Lead / Infobox / History

NOTE: I’m proposing the following edits for FleishmanHillard on behalf of Schlumberger. I’m a paid editor and aware of the COI guidelines. These edits are intended to correct outdated information/nomenclature in the Lead and update one line in the History section. Thanks for your consideration. Jon Gray (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

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Lead

• First sentence: Schlumberger is now officially known as SLB, no longer just a dba name.Given that, I propose revising the first sentence to read (proposed area to edit/replace in bold):

“SLB (formerly Schlumberger) is an American multinational oilfield services company.”

• Second sentence: SLB’s incorporated name has changed from Schlumberger NV to SLB Limited (SLB N.V.), as seen in cited reporting. For accuracy, please update the first part of the sentence to read (proposed area to edit/replace in bold):

“Founded in France in 1926, the company is now incorporated as SLB Limited (SLB N.V.) in Willemstad, Curaçao, with principal…”

• First sentence of second paragraph: SLB is no longer traded on Euronext Paris, the London Stock Exchange, nor the SIX Swiss Exchange.It’s still traded on the NYSE, but since that is covered in the infobox, I propose removing this sentence about listings altogether.

• Second sentence of second paragraph: To align with the company’s official name, please update this sentence to read (proposed area to edit/replace in bold):

“In 2022, the Forbes Global 2000 ranked SLB the 349th largest company in the world.”

Infobox

• As mentioned and cited above, SLB is no longer listed on Euronext Paris, nor the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Please remove both listings from the infobox.

History

• Final sentence of the section: The Champion X acquisition, positioned as announced in the existing sentence, closed in July 2025. Propose adding the following sentence at the end of the section to provide resolution to the announced intention:

“The deal was closed in July 2025.”

References

Partly done: Page move is pending a request. I added the delisted status instead of removing the former listing.   MetalBreaksAndBends   (talk) (contribs) 18:20, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Edit Request – OK to update Post-2022 Mentions of Schlumberger to SLB?

NOTE: I’m proposing the following edits for FleishmanHillard on behalf of Schlumberger. I’m a paid editor and aware of the COI guidelines.

With the article now reflecting the company’s correct name (SLB, as rebranded in 2022), I’ve noticed several places in the article where the company is still referred to as Schlumberger for info from 2022 and after. Specifically seeing them in the History and Corporate Affairs sections (three total instances).

To align with how the company was/is known from 2022 on, I propose revising the remaining post-2022 Schlumberger mentions to read “SLB.” I’m happy to tackle these updates myself if an editor grants me permission. Otherwise, I can list out specifically where these remaining mentions are for an editor who is willing to make these updates. To be clear, I do not intend to change any Schlumberger mentions occurring prior to 2022.

Please let me know if I have permission to move ahead with these changes or if another editor would prefer to handle. Thanks for your consideration. Jon Gray (talk) 14:56, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

 Not done Wikipedia content must follow WP:V. This means we generally reflect the name used in the cited source, especially for historical context. Updating post-2022 mentions from "Schlumberger" to "SLB" where sources still use "Schlumberger" would introduce interpretation not supported by the source, which may be synthesis.

If there are specific instances where sources use "SLB", those can be updated.

For reference, company renaming examples include Facebook -> Meta, Dunkin'_Donuts -> Dunkin' , Weight Watchers -> WW, Facebook -> Meta. ◦ Sibshops (talk) 15:36, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

@Sibshops Ah - makes sense, and thanks for a speedy reply. Will check to see if any of these sources fit the criteria you mentioned, but otherwise, makes total sense to leave as-is given that rule. Appreciate the review! Jon Gray (talk) 17:00, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

References

Edit Request – Lead

NOTE: I’m proposing the following edit for FleishmanHillard on behalf of SLB. I’m a paid editor and aware of the COI guidelines. Thanks for your consideration. Jon Gray (talk) 22:54, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

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Lead

SLB is classified as a “multinational oilfield services company” in the lead, however that is not totally accurate as it doesn’t consider the company’s work in energy technology (i.e., AI infrastructure for energy sector, geothermal systems, New Energy, carbon capture, etc.)

Given that, I propose a minor update in the Lead – please update the company’s classification to read “multinational oilfield services and energy technology company.”

References