A leading manufacturing and technology operator for the world’s evolving oil and gas industry, SLB is bringing forth energy innovation for a more balanced planet. We explore the company’s cutting-edge products that are increasingly accelerating decarbonization.
STRIKING A NEW ENERGY BALANCE
Intrinsically linked to the sustainable progression of the global energy landscape, SLB is a leading manufacturer of next-generation oil and gas products, whose science, engineering, and digital expertise is driving the industry’s decarbonization journey forward.
Creating and deploying technology across a vast geographical footprint of over 100 countries, the company’s forward-thinking products simultaneously reduce emissions and meet global energy demands.
Furthermore, with a growing workforce representing 160+ nationalities across 900 facilities worldwide, SLB boasts an extensive network of expertise that is leveraged to change the way in which the world produces and consumes energy, heralding key innovations in the oil and gas space.
The company boasts an extensive legacy spanning over 85 years in Mexico, Central America, and Venezuela (MCA), leading the charge in the evolution of the region’s oil and gas landscape.
Today, it operates across 12 countries in Central and South America, including Brazil, Venezuela, Guatemala, and Trinidad and Tobago.
With an ever-expanding presence both geographically and operationally, SLB has four overarching goals – to decarbonize the industry, innovate the oil and gas sector, ramp-up new energy solutions, and deliver digital at scale.
These product divisions are underpinned by the foundations of leading science and technology, all working together to deliver responsible change across the oil and gas landscape.
THE PATH TO NET ZERO
Recognizing the need to improve the oil and gas industry as the bedrock of the global energy transition, SLB boasts a plethora of innovative solutions that drive performance and decarbonize operations.
The company’s vast product portfolio includes reservoir characterization; well construction, competition, and intervention; plug and abandonment; integrated services and consulting; and comprehensive training.
SLB’s reservoir characterization services, for instance, provide clients with a clear overview of their reservoirs in order to help drive performance and make the most out of their operations.
The company’s characterization model draws upon petrophysics, geology, geomechanics, and geophysics to offer a quantitative representation of each reservoir’s ability to store and produce carbon.
More specifically, these services include wellbore interpretation and analysis, rock and fluid laboratory services, surface and downhole logging, reservoir and formation testing, and seismic services, which build a deeper understanding of fluid behaviors in different well environments.
As part of its reservoir and formation testing services, SLB has developed Production ExPRESS™ – a rapid production response toolkit that can tackle and overcome temporary production challenges both on-site and in a production facility.
Production ExPRESS™ was recently deployed by an offshore operator in Malaysia to successfully complete a matrix acidizing campaign using the tool’s fluid preconditioning services. As such, its production response solutions prevented pipeline blockages and avoided major production losses.
Elsewhere, SLB’s well construction solutions involve unmatched drilling and well placement services, solving some of the industry’s most complex challenges.
Case in point, last year the company was awarded a major drilling contract by Woodside Energy – an Australian petroleum giant – for the Trion development project in offshore Mexico.
The contract comprises 18 ultra-deepwater wells that will be implemented over a three-year period.
Meanwhile, SLB has also been awarded a series of major drilling contracts by Shell for which the company’s integrated services approach and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled drilling capabilities will be pivotal to improving operational ability and well quality.
The contracts also encompass digital directional drilling services and hardware, logging while drilling, surface logging, cementing, drilling and completions fluids, and wireline services.
TAKING CONTROL OF CARBON
At the heart of SLB’s decarbonization objective is its pioneering carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) solutions, which continue to derisk clients’ projects and facilitate long-term carbon storage across a vast range of new energy systems.
The challenge of reducing carbon emissions is equally complex as it is critical, as the world’s biggest industries are built on foundations that emit significant greenhouse gas (GHG) levels. As such, the company is committed to helping customers take control of their carbon emissions and start their sustainability journey.
As an integral part of its CCUS solution, SLB’s carbon capture and processing software builds an intelligent overview of what is required to best reach the client’s decarbonization targets and most suited for their industry.
The company is likewise a leader in carbon storage thanks to its Sequestri™ portfolio. Launched in June last year, the tool streamlines the development and management of carbon storage facilities.
Effective carbon sequestration and storage requires a deep understanding of each site’s capacity, injectivity, and containment, alongside a clear assessment of regulatory requirements, potential risks, and costs.
As such, the Sequestri™ suite of technologies was crafted from the experiences of 150+ CCUS projects, allowing it to gain a comprehensive overview of each project, simplify complex environments by refining data and workflows, manage risks, and optimize CCUS projects from end-to-end.
This is achieved by offering valuable solutions in site evaluation, carbon dioxide (CO2) injection operations, CCUS well design and construction, and regulatory permittance, making Sequestri™ a trusted tool across every stage of the carbon sequestration lifecycle.
With the belief that captured carbon only goes as far as the strategy to deliver it to utilization or storage, SLB also offers a vast range of technologies for carbon transport operations, such as flow simulators, horizontal pumping systems for pressure, and low-emission valves.
In this way, SLB offers a vast portfolio of forward-thinking solutions that place CCUS operations right into clients’ hands, who can make the most of the company’s innovative equipment and chemical solutions to deliver extensive results.
MEETING THE ENERGY DEMANDS OF TOMORROW
Alongside being a dominant force in CCUS, SLB’s geothermal and energy storage solutions are key to scaling new energy systems and powering the next generation of data centers.
The company harnesses geothermal power and applies it to its asset development, reservoir characterization, and well construction, completion, and production services, maintaining an environmental focus and making sustainable energy more accessible.
Operating in the subsurface oil and gas space for over a century, SLB has an extensive footprint across the world’s geothermal operations.
This growing presence is driven by the company’s GeothermEx™ consulting service, which covers the full remit of geothermal operations with unmatched expertise, guiding clients throughout their asset lifecycle.
Similarly, Celsius Energy – SLB’s latest energy business venture – offers an innovative heating and cooling solution that uses a shallow form of geothermal energy, which, in turn, reduces the amount of CO2 emissions emitted and saves energy.
SLB’s scaling of new energy systems also involves the advancement of renewable energy storage – an increasingly integral component to the global energy transition.
The deployment of stationary storage solutions has proven to be particularly pertinent, guaranteeing secure access to energy when most urgently needed and supports effective distribution.
SLB additionally leverages renewable energy sources such as solar, thermal, and wind power to generate an oversupply of electricity, which can then be stored and drawn from in times of peak demand or when there is limited renewable energy generation.
Therefore, the company’s energy storage expertise helps to address the issue of unpredictability – one of the biggest challenges to the growth of renewable energy.
DELIVERING DIGITAL
SLB’s dominance in the evolution of the oil and gas space is reinforced by its scaling of forward-thinking digital solutions, which simplify complex planning processes, streamline decision-making, and close the digital divide across the industry.
The company’s data and AI platforms accurately interpret clients’ data with an intelligence system that presents new capabilities to users and improves workflows through different domain applications. This also means data tools are easily accessible, creating an improved user experience.
SLB’s data solution specifically offers a wealth of benefits to projects, such as reducing risk by accurately assessing potential dangers and focusing on predictability.
The company’s data collection services also increase the agility of assets through precise reporting, which helps futureproof organizations.
As well as reporting on each client’s carbon footprint, SLB’s data solution is also trusted to increase the overall productivity of a project by optimizing infrastructure and intrinsically monitoring costs.
Embedded with AI, SLB’s data platform leads to greater decision-making and improved workflows, ultimately enabling clients to maximize their projects.
This is demonstrated by the company’s recently signed collaboration with Shell, which – in addition to optimizing well construction – will see SLB develop agentic AI-powered solutions that will boost the capabilities of technical experts and decision makers.
The project strives to deliver an AI infrastructure that unifies data and workflows across production operations in a secure digital environment.
BRINGING BALANCE BACK TO THE PLANET
Committed to achieving net zero by 2050, SLB is expertly navigating the fine balance between enabling secure, accessible, and sustainable oil and gas supply while also meeting growing energy demands.
In order to make a difference to the planet, the company first looks inwards, continually rethinking its strategies and methodologies to reduce emissions and be transparent with its environmental progress.
In fact, SLB is proud to be the first company in the oil and gas space to make a Scope 3 emissions commitment, which extends its environmental targets to both its suppliers and customers with whom it collaborates.
Elsewhere, SLB’s dedications go far beyond decarbonizing just the oil and gas industry, as it also hopes to tackle the long-standing environmental challenges of the steel and cement sectors by leaning on its extensive knowledge of science and technology.
For example, the company’s well construction activities require extensive quantities of cement, thus contributing to the industry’s overall carbon emissions. In order to combat this, SLB has developed the EcoShield™ geopolymer cement-free system, eliminating up to 85 percent of embodied carbon and providing a cleaner alternative to conventional cement methods.
In recognition of its pioneering environmental efforts, SLB won two Sustainability, Environmental Achievement, and Leadership (SEAL) Business Sustainability Awards last year.
Firstly, the SEAL Sustainable Service Award was attributed to the company’s ongoing efforts in reducing the environmental impacts of lithium production.
SLB additionally won the SEAL Environmental Initiative Award for its ‘Record, Reduce, Replace’ strategy launched in 2020, which led to a 60 percent reduction in CO2 equivalent in its first three years.
The strategy’s success lies in its ability to track emissions data, optimize facility operations, and transition to lower-emission energy sources, thus having a major sustainability impact on the company’s facilities.
The award marks SLB’s third time being recognized by SEAL, having previously won the SEAL Environmental Initiative Award in 2022 for its considerable GHG reductions in oil and gas operations. A year later, the company was awarded the SEAL Sustainable Service Award for its Celsius Energy heating and cooling system.
SLB hopes to continue its trajectory of transforming the oil and gas landscape through an unparalleled portfolio of technologies and new energy capabilities, critical to decarbonizing customers’ operations and having lasting environmental impacts.
SLB PARTNER
This company profile was produced by the editorial team at North America Outlook, a publication within the Outlook Publishing global network of B2B industry magazines.
Outlook Publishing showcases organisations and leadership teams shaping sectors including manufacturing, mining, construction, healthcare, supply chains, food production, and sustainability.
North America Outlook highlights organisations driving innovation and industry leadership across North America.
