Schlumberger Limited is an oilfield services company based in Houston, Texas that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Euronext Paris, the London Stock Exchange and SIX Swiss Exchange.
Schlumberger has an office in Roma, Australia and has petro-technical teams in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste, and everywhere around the world where there is oil & gas.
Schlumberger is the world’s largest offshore drilling company and offshore drilling contractor by revenue. In 2022, Schlumberger completed a corporate rebranding to be known as SLB.
Schlumberger employs more than 100,000 people finding, scoping, and drilling as much oil and gas as possible from 85 countries across the world. With revenues of $48bn (£30bn) a year and a valuation in excess of $116bn (£75bn), it has more staff than Google, turns over more than Goldman Sachs, and is worth more than McDonald’s.
Investors in Schlumberger include the Wellcome Trust (£114m), and the Gates Foundation Trust (more than USD$3m). Schlumberger is formally incorporated in Curaçao, a Caribbean offshore haven with ties to the Netherlands.
See our Index of Gas Explorers in Australia
Schlumberger, also known as SLB, in the news …
Schlumberger continues seismic exploration while under criminal investigation
5 May 2023 – A network of community and environmental groups in Victoria and Tasmania say they want to know why a foreign company being investigated for environmental crimes is being allowed to put marine life at risk by using massive seismic blasts to explore for offshore gas.
According to documents obtained under FOI legislation, multinational corporation Schlumberger, one of two foreign companies planning seismic blasting in the Otway Basin, is currently under criminal investigation.
Otway Climate Emergency Action Network (OCEAN) say they strongly suspect this is for breaching an environmental limitation during their 2019–20 2D seismic blasting project in the Otway Basin.
Lisa Deppeler, alliance representative and director of OCEAN, estimates that 99% of Australians, including our politicians, are unaware of what is happening offshore in Australia, a situation enabled by the obscure government incentives and loopholes that encourage a free for all approach.
Lisa Deppeler said:
‘What we have found out during our enquiries has left our group gobsmacked.
If this kind of unrestricted, exploitation was happening on mainland Australia there would be riots in the streets. Australians and our government representatives are being hoodwinked.
A delegation from our group recently travelled to Canberra to speak to members of parliament and we found that most of them were unaware of what seismic blasting is, and of the backdoor approach being facilitated by the offshore titles’ administrator, NOPTA.
Those who met with our group were shocked and deeply concerned.’ Lisa Deppeler, alliance representative and director of OCEAN (Otway Climate Emergency Action Network)
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The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has advised OCEAN that this investigation will not affect Schlumberger’s current application for a permit to 3D blast the same area.
Otway Climate Emergency Action Network has discovered:
A Special Prospectors Authority (SPA) allows multinational exploration companies to select areas of Australia’s ocean for seismic blasting. An SPA sits outside the Minister for Resources’ annual offshore titles release, thereby escaping the usual community consultation and governmental scrutiny. The decision to grant an SPA lies entirely with the Title Administrator from NOPTA. Important decisions concerning the health of our ocean are in the hands of a bureaucrat and not the Australian people.
Each SPA is assessed in isolation. This means that multiple exploration companies can blast the same area of ocean repeatedly. The offshore regulator does not take into consideration the cumulative impact of multiple blasting of the same marine habitat.
Offshore seismic blasting is used to explore for fossil fuel deposits deep below the ocean floor. The survey ship covers an area of ocean in a grid pattern, releasing blasts of approximately 250 decibels, every 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, often for months on end.
Human hearing is lost at 160 decibels. Scientific research has found that the blasts can severely disrupt, damage and kill marine species either by the blasts themselves or by impacting their feeding, breeding and migrations. The blasts impact and kill zooplankton within a radius of at least 1.2km radius of each blast.
Tasmanian fisher Craig Garland says:
‘Our fishing industry is highly regulated and is known as one of the most sustainable fishing industries in the world.
We work with very strict guidelines and quotas to remain viable, yet these companies can come along and blast our fishing grounds and our livelihood.’ – Tasmanian fisher Craig Garland
A 2021 Senate Enquiry into seismic blasting made 19 recommendations to increase research and improve government policy around offshore gas exploration.
None of these recommendations has been enacted.
Friends of the Earth campaigner Freja Leonard says as part of the testing, seismic blasts of up to 250 decibels will go off every 10 seconds for months at a time.
Freja Leonard, from Friends of the Earth Melbourne, said:
‘Seismic survey ships are blasting in remote areas beyond the continental shelf, doing untold damage to fisheries and the marine environment as a whole.
By the time any gas is found and ready for production we’ll be well into the next decade, when by rights the gas industry should be ready to shut up shop.
‘The gas industry is damaging from the moment of exploration right through to end use,’ Ms Leonard said. ‘This is a case of the unacceptable in search of the unnecessary.’ – Freja Leonard, from Friends of the Earth Melbourne
In January 2023, Schlumberger announced plans to exit the offshore and onshore seismic acquisition market due to weak returns.
In 2015, Schlumberger was indicted by the US Department of Justice for sanction violations of conducting business in Iran and Sudan; the company was fined $233 million, amounting to the largest fine for sanctions to date.
In 2010, Schlumberger revealed it had a crew on the Deepwater Horizon rig who departed only hours before the explosion that triggered the disaster that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away in the Gulf of Mexico. The fire was inextinguishable and the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest marine oil spill in history.
In 2006, a radioactive canister imported by Schlumberger was recovered in the Western Australian outback desert after the container fell off a truck.
In 2022, Schlumberger completed a corporate rebranding to be known as SLB.
Queensland Health prosecutes company after radiation injury
2017 – Queensland Health has successfully prosecuted a company providing services to the oil and natural gas industry after a man was injured from being exposed to unsafe levels of radiation.
The Brisbane Magistrates Court recently (11/7) convicted Schlumberger Oilfield Australia Pty Ltd (SOAPL) following two breaches of the Radiation Safety Act 1999, fined them $162,500 and ordered them to pay costs.
Magistrate Hall found the company had failed to take reasonable steps to protect the health and safety of people by ensuring adequate safeguards were in place when radiation sources were used, and failed to ensure that only appropriately licensed people handled radiation sources.
Magistrate Hall commented that the incident was a serious matter which warranted a significant penalty to serve as a deterrent in the industry.
Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said the successful prosecution followed an extensive Queensland Health investigation into the incident which occurred at a drilling site west of Dalby in 2014.
“Five men at a borehole logging operation were exposed to radiation from an unshielded radioactive source that resulted in one of the men sustaining a significant burn on his leg,” Dr Young said.
“Significant radiation exposures such as this have been associated with potential long term impacts on health outcomes.”
Borehole logging is a common radiation practice which is performed in connection with mining and petroleum industries worldwide. The radiation sources are kept in shielded storage containers until required.
Only people who are appropriately trained and skilled can obtain licences to use radiation sources.
Dr Young said the prosecution by Queensland Health under the Radiation Safety Act 1999 highlighted the serious consequences if radiation safety measures were not followed.
“Queensland has tough regulations in place to avoid harms to health associated with radiation exposure,” Dr Young said.
“We work closely with businesses that use radiation to ensure safety measures are in place and implemented, but this result shows that we will not hesitate to take strong regulatory measures when there is a concern for people’s safety.”
More details on radiation safety are available at Radiation Health – Legislation, standards and information.
