Active effort to instill optimism again throughout the organization, says CEO Kibsgaard.
Schlumberger CEO Paal Kibsgaard has revealed that the world's largest oilfield services firm cut almost 70,000 jobs in less than three years as its revenues plummeted 50 percent during a prolonged oil bust.
Kibsgaard, speaking at the 2018 CERAWeek energy conference in Houston this week, said Schlumberger is growing in the US to meet surging shale oil production and seeing measured progress in the rest of the world. There's an active effort to instill optimism again throughout the organization, he said.
Last year was strong in the US, Kibsgaard said, and 2018 is showing signs of at least small growth in most of the world. "There was significant growth in activity, particularly in fracking, in 2017," he said.
The market is making big bets on US shale, Kibsgaard told the conference, arguing that the world is banking on the US to fuel global growth in the short term. "The long-cycle investments are still very, very low."
Schlumberger has worked to cut back on costs while relying more on software and automation. The company is in the process of launching its latest land rig drilling system that's more digitized and automated, which Schlumberger has referred to as the "Rig of the Future."
The company opened its Silicon Valley-based Software Technology Innovation Center in 2014 and "to be connected to that, even though we're in the oil and gas industry, is a bit cool," Kibsgaard said.
CERAWeek runs until March 9 at the Hilton Americas, Houston.
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