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42nd Annual Howard Weil Energy Conference
Paal Kibsgaard
In terms of operating income and earnings per share, Schlumberger has also posted consistent
double-digit growth over the past two years, while in comparison, our competitors have either
declined or at best stayed flat.
These financial results, which clearly stand out, were achieved while facing the same pricing and
activity headwinds as our peer group in North America Land, North Africa and parts of Latin
America and the Middle East.
Contrary to the rest, however, we have been able to overcome the market challenges and post
improvements in all of our financial indicators over this period.
So why is that?
Well partly, because we are significantly bigger and better balanced in terms of the breadth of our
technology offering and the reach of our global footprint.
Partly, because we simply have a more capable organization, and a stronger management team that
performs better in challenging situations.
And partly, because we are starting to see an impact of the transformation programs that we are
currently implementing.
Of the four transformation themes I outlined earlier, the technology and integration programs are
further along in terms of implementation than the reliability and efficiency programs.
However, common to all of them is that they are clearly starting to impact our results, that they
together hold significant further performance upside, and that they are all a result of the foresight
and investments that started between three and six years ago, and hence cannot be replicated
overnight.
