Conrad and his brother Marcel Schlumberger went on to create the first well logs\u2014using electric cables for subsurface readings, producing outputs that resembled EKG heart monitor readings. The method became the backbone of modern geophysical prospecting, and supercharged the growth of a burgeoning oil and gas exploration industry worldwide. In 1926 the brothers founded the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 de Prospection \u00c9lectrique (Electric Prospecting Co.). That company\u2014eventually Schlumberger and now SLB\u2014rapidly expanded into Venezuela, the United States, and the Soviet Union. By the end of the 1930s, Schlumberger had moved into the Middle East, more than 20 years before the formation of OPEC.<\/p>\n
Over a century of upheaval and industrial reinvention, SLB has grown into the largest oilfield services and energy technology company in the world. Known in the industry as \u201cBig Blue\u201d for its signature blue uniforms, it has remained in all those key locations, and expanded to another 100 countries.<\/p>\n
Now, as the Middle East\u2019s oil and gas sector rebounds from the biggest energy supply shock in modern history\u2014the monthslong closure of the Strait of Hormuz\u2014and Venezuela rebuilds its energy infrastructure, SLB is ideally positioned to profit from this growth in its next century.<\/p>\n
In the energy services industry, which does all the grunt work for oil producers\u2014drilling, fracking, and, increasingly, digital and AI-driven automation services\u2014SLB is larger than its better-known American rivals, Halliburton and Baker Hughes. With 109,000 workers worldwide, SLB employs more people than ExxonMobil and Chevron combined. <\/p>\n
In Venezuela, SLB and Chevron\u2014two companies that never left the country even after the Hugo Ch\u00e1vez regime expropriated oil assets\u2014will work with state-owned PDVSA to reinvigorate the world\u2019s largest proven oil reserves. In the Middle East, SLB partners with Saudi Aramco, the United Arab Emirates\u2019 ADNOC, Kuwait Petroleum, and others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about SLB is they don\u2019t leave,\u201d said James West, head of energy and power at Melius Research. \u201cThey don\u2019t leave countries when there\u2019s a coup or a change in government or a conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery international market is their backyard,\u201d West added. \u201cSo I think they\u2019re going to be the biggest beneficiary of this recovery in oil and natural gas production.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thriving even amid chaos and conflict<\/h2>\n
Olivier Le Peuch knows to never let an energy crisis go to waste. He is the first French CEO of SLB since 1986, a year before he joined the company as a young electrical engineer. Sitting in its Houston office\u2014SLB is formally incorporated in Cura\u00e7ao for tax purposes, but its three principal offices are in Houston, Paris, and The Hague\u2014Le Peuch, 62, exuded calm. SLB, after all, thrives in chaos and conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very used to this,\u201d Le Peuch explained in thickly accented English. \u201cIt\u2019s part of who we are. It\u2019s part of the routine, unfortunately, that we have learned to live with crisis management, and working in situations that are geopolitically complex.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGeopolitically complex\u201d may be an understatement. The world entered 2026 on the verge of a global oil glut, before the Middle East conflict quickly changed everything, choking off nearly 20% of the world\u2019s oil and gas supply and dramatically shrinking emergency oil reserves around the world from the U.S. to China. With ongoing uncertainty over the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, nations want to replenish their lost fossil fuel inventories, build up bigger stockpiles, and become more energy-secure through their own domestic production.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about SLB is they don\u2019t leave\u2026when there\u2019s a coup or a change in government or a conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n James West, Melius Research<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n All this may be painful for governments, companies, and consumers paying more for products and at the pump, but it promises to create a boom for oil companies and the sector that services them. \u201cIf you want to create an oil upcycle, you shut the Strait of Hormuz and you get one,\u201d West observed.<\/p>\n The Iran war is accelerating a pivot toward geopolitically driven, regional energy security, Le Peuch said, including President Trump\u2019s emphasis on oil production in the Western Hemisphere, the so-called Donroe Doctrine. Countries now want a bigger buffer of energy supply\u2014\u201ca bit more flexibility to respond to this crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Julie Glassberg\u2014Redux for Fortune<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThe peak of globalization is behind us,\u201d Le Peuch said. \u201cThe geopolitics are shaping the world differently, and energy will be more diversified. It will be the strategy for many countries to ensure they have enough energy sources to supply and guarantee their growth, or to support their AI investments.\u201d<\/p>\n What does this mean for the energy infrastructure sector? After years of underinvestment and worries about so-called peak oil demand, Le Peuch put it simply: \u201cExploration is back.\u201d<\/p>\n The whole enterprise of oil and gas exploration and extraction is grueling, and success is eked out only through hard, complicated labor, much of it done behind the scenes. \u201cThere\u2019s a belief by investors and the public at large that the oil and gas companies themselves do the work, which they don\u2019t,\u201d West explained. \u201cThey own the assets, but it\u2019s the service companies that do all the heavy lifting. They\u2019re the ones that have all the people and the steel and the equipment, and actually do the work.\u201d<\/p>\n Going back decades, Schlumberger built strong footholds around the world by hiring local workforces and embracing communities long before other oil companies followed suit. \u201cUnfortunately, oil is not found in the most friendly countries in the world; SLB perfected the art of scaling down and getting people to safe places,\u201d West said. \u201cLining up the flights, getting their employees home, providing whatever emergency services are necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n But SLB hasn\u2019t benefited as much as its customers from its central role in the industry. Big Oil leader ExxonMobil had a market cap of $600 billion in mid-July\u2014after hitting an all-time high this year\u2014while SLB was sitting below $75 billion, down somewhat from its height during the shale oil boom of the past decade.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are the end of the whip in terms of volatility,\u201d said Jim Wicklund, a veteran oil analyst and managing director at PPHB, an energy investment firm. \u201cWhen things slow down\u2014oil and gas prices go down\u2014they go down harder than everyone else. If you own a drilling rig in a down market, that rig has the value of a boat anchor.\u201d<\/p>\n In some ways, SLB and its competitors became victims of their own operational efficiencies: Exxon in the past may have paid them to drill a well for 30 days. Today, that same well can be completed in less than a week. That\u2019s great for Exxon, Wicklund said, \u201cbut if you own that drilling rig, you just lost 80% of your revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n Johanna Alarc\u00f3n for Fortune<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n In 1980, Schlumberger had the fourth-largest market cap in the world, behind only IBM, AT&T, and Exxon. Measured by revenue, the Fortune Global 500 ranked SLB at its recent high point of No. 215, in 2015, but the company has since fallen to No. 460\u2014courtesy of oil volatility and those efficiency gains. There\u2019s a new optimism that it could rise back up as the global energy industry gets back to work.<\/p>\n Today, SLB focuses on drilling services, well construction and completion, subsurface characterization, production chemicals, and, of course, Conrad Schlumberger\u2019s pioneering wireline services\u2014detecting and interpreting everything going on inside a well. \u201cThey\u2019re the 800-pound gorilla in oilfield services,\u201d Wicklund said, \u201cand everyone sees now how important oil has become.\u201d<\/p>\n SLB\u2019s business goes far beyond oil. The company has expanded into geothermal energy, carbon capture services, and lithium extraction. And the company\u2019s fastest-growing segment is now its digital and data center solutions business.<\/p>\n Dating back to Conrad\u2019s pioneering experiments, SLB has always been ahead of the curve in tech and automation. For decades, SLB pioneered digital technologies for subsurface data and for automating work once done by roughnecks. In 1985, the company launched the Schlumberger Information Network (SINet), the first Arpanet-based corporate intranet in the world. In 2008, it partnered with Nvidia well before most people had even heard of what is now the world\u2019s most valuable company. AI-controlled rigs now use SLB\u2019s \u201cautonomous geosteering\u201d\u2014drilling thousands of feet underground without human involvement.<\/p>\n \u201cThe company transformed its ability to go from mainframe to desktop, and then from desktop to cloud, then to cloud and AI,\u201d Le Peuch said. \u201cAnd we were the first at every step.\u201d<\/p>\n That digital transformation became a key reason for shortening the corporate name from Schlumberger to SLB in 2022. \u201cIt\u2019s a very smart thing for them to do,\u201d Wicklund said, even if \u201cmost people in the industry thought it was a huge mistake.\u201d Schlumberger was a well-known name in oil and gas; SLB sounded like a whole new company.<\/p>\n Still, SLB\u2019s digital growth remained tied to the cyclical oil sector\u2014until AI changed that. While most energy companies are feeding the AI boom by building power plants, SLB is focusing on digital power management and modular data center construction, helping hyperscalers use off-site manufacturing and standardized processes for everything from server racks to cooling systems to build faster and operate more affordably.<\/p>\n Johanna Alarc\u00f3n for Fortune<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n Leading AI hyperscalers have told investors they plan to spend roughly $710 billion on North American data centers in 2026 alone, so it stands to reason that the energy industry would want a piece.<\/p>\n \u201cAll these companies jumped very hard into whatever they could do for data centers, which ended up being supplying power, but SLB is digitally optimizing not only the power, but the entire operation,\u201d Wicklund said. \u201cThey\u2019ve clearly taken the lead in that.\u201d<\/p>\n SLB\u2019s fortunes rose with the great oil boom and global transportation revolution of the 20th century. But its founding family\u2019s artistic, globe-trotting descendants have mostly stayed out of the business\u2014and some have visibly wrestled with what that oil money has meant.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s early decades were marked by the tumult and horrors of World War II, which also contributed to the company\u2019s international expansion. As the business grew into the global \u201cBig Blue\u201d giant, Conrad Schlumberger died suddenly in 1936 at 57 years old after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.<\/p>\n Conrad\u2019s daughter Dominique fled occupied France in 1941 with her three children while her husband, John de Menil, was working for Schlumberger in Romania. They sought temporary refuge in Cuba and ultimately settled in Houston. The company also managed to ship the blueprints for Schlumberger\u2019s many inventions to Texas, for safekeeping, out of German hands.<\/p>\n John de Menil led the company\u2019s Latin American growth beyond Venezuela to Ecuador and other countries, and later its push into East Asia. <\/p>\n Johanna Alarc\u00f3n for Fortune<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n Conrad\u2019s brother Marcel remained in German-occupied France while the operational headquarters moved to Houston. A later CEO, Jean Riboud, served in the French Resistance; he was captured and held in a concentration camp. After the war he met Marcel and went on to lead the company for 20 years, until 1985.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois de Menil, now 81, was the first of his immediate family born in the U.S.\u2014in 1945 in Houston to Dominique and John. \u201cMy father liked the can-do spirit of Texas, and the wildcatter-type mentality,\u201d de Menil recalled in an interview with Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI think he was very taken with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Every summer, the de Menils would trek to France and spend time with the larger Schlumberger family at the Val-Richer estate in Normandy\u2014the same land where Conrad conducted his early experiments. <\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois never seriously considered joining the family business\u2014and in his branch doing so was actively discouraged. \u201cMy father very strongly advocated against that,\u201d he says. \u201cThe company needed professionals, not family members. That is likely part of the reason for the success.\u201d<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois remains torn about his family\u2019s legacy\u2014and as an architect his work focuses on energy conservation. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a remarkable story because [Conrad\u2019s] invention revolutionized the methods by which they prospect for oil,\u201d he said. \u201cRegretfully, what we\u2019ve discovered is that fossil fuels are undoing our world.<\/p>\n \u201cThe benefits worldwide to people through energy and oil are apparent,\u201d he remarked, \u201cbut it has a price.\u201d<\/p>\n From Conrad to Riboud to Le Peuch today, the company\u2019s executives have always described Schlumberger as a technology firm first, ever since it embraced electrical geophysics at the turn of the century.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just happened that the first data we collected, the first data we interpreted, were on an oil well,\u201d Riboud said in 1981.<\/p>\n And even amid today\u2019s oil boom, Le Peuch said, innovations in clean energy and reducing the carbon footprint of oil and gas remain part of the company\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the industry is at the age of transformation,\u201d Le Peuch noted. \u201cThe customer trusts us to innovate in the most remote, the most complex environments, as well as whenever there is an opportunity to disrupt through a new technology.\u201d<\/p>\n As their company expanded, so did the wealth of the Schlumberger family and the prominence of its branches\u2014the de Menil and Seydoux families.<\/p>\n The Seydoux family dominates the European film industry. Onetime Schlumberger president J\u00e9r\u00f4me Seydoux\u2014Marcel\u2019s grandson\u2014controls film and theater giant Path\u00e9. His brother Nicolas chairs the Gaumont film studio. J\u00e9r\u00f4me\u2019s granddaughter, the movie star L\u00e9a Seydoux, broke through internationally in the French film Blue Is the Warmest Color<\/em>. She went on to star as a \u201cBond girl\u201d in 2015\u2019s Spectre<\/em>.<\/p>\n In Houston, where Conrad\u2019s daughter Dominique fled from Nazi-occupied France in 1941 with her husband, John de Menil, and their three children, the family has been prominent in the arts community as the city expanded from oil boomtown to major metropolis. They developed the Menil Collection\u2014the most prominent private museum in Houston. The family has been described by the New York Times<\/em> as \u201cthe Medici of modern art,\u201d citing the famed Italian art patrons of the Renaissance.<\/p>\n \u201cThey did something remarkable because they believed in it,\u201d said Fran\u00e7ois de Menil of his parents. \u201cJohn and Dominique had an influence on the family as a whole with respect to art.\u201d<\/p>\n This article appears in the August\/September issue of <\/em> Fortune with the headline \u201cThe quiet giant of big oil.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Meet #SLB #billion #oil #services #giant #poised #cash #data #centers #postStrait #Hormuz #oil #exploration #boom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1912, the French physicist … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[432,796,161,1062,541,906,1065,297,1064,456,792,717,1059,1061,1063,586,1060,356],"class_list":["post-751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-billion","tag-boom","tag-cash","tag-centers","tag-data","tag-data-centers","tag-exploration","tag-giant","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-meet","tag-oil","tag-oil-and-gas","tag-poised","tag-poststrait","tag-services","tag-slb","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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<\/div> \u201cThe end of the whip in terms of volatility\u201d<\/h2>\n
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<\/div>Tech at the center of the strategy<\/h2>\n
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<\/div>The family, and business, spreads across the globe<\/h2>\n
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<\/div>
\nOilfield heirs<\/h2>\n
A petro-fortune fueling art and film<\/h3>\n