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Oilfield services giant SLB is resisting mounting pressure to exit Russia, telling investors its operations do not violate sweeping new sanctions targeting the country's oil sector.
SLBSchlumberger, formerly called Schlumberger, said on Friday it was reviewing strict rules issued by the Biden administration last week that ban U.S. oil services in Russia. But the company's CEO, Olivier Le Peuch, told investors in a conference call that at this point he believes its operations are “in line with the new sanctions.”
The company, headquartered in Houston, added that the contribution of its Russian operations fell to 4 percent of its global revenue in 2024, or about $1.4 billion, from 5 percent the previous year.
SLB is under renewed pressure from US lawmakers to withdraw from Russia after new sanctions aimed at curbing the flow of oil money used to finance the Kremlin. War in Ukraine. In October, a bipartisan group of more than 50 members of Congress wrote to the Biden administration demanding tougher sanctions on U.S.-based oilfield services companies operating in Russia, in an effort to force SLB to leave the country.
SLB is among the few companies headquartered in the United States Oil companies It still operates in the country after Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The company's two biggest Western rivals, Baker Hughes and Halliburton, sold their Russian operations to local managers in 2022.
SLB has taken voluntary measures to limit its Russian activities, including halting shipments of products and technology to the country from all SLB facilities worldwide in 2023, Le Bush told analysts.
He added: “We are reviewing the new sanctions, and at this stage we believe that our voluntary measures are consistent with the new sanctions.”
A Financial Times investigation last year found that SLP had signed new contracts, advertised more than 1,000 jobs and imported equipment into Russia since its rivals left the country.
Oilfield service providers do a lot of the less glamorous work in the global oil and gas industry — everything from building roads and laying pipelines to drilling wells and pumping crude oil. But they also provide access to cutting-edge technologies that are vital to supporting complex exploration and development drilling operations.
Oil industry experts say SLB is reluctant to leave Russia because the Kremlin is likely to reward it with contracts when the war against Ukraine ends and Western sanctions are lifted.
Human rights groups and the Ukrainian government claim that SLB's work in Russia helps generate billions of dollars in oil revenues to support the Kremlin's war effort. Last year, the Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Agency added SLB to a blacklist of “international sponsors of the war.”
