SLB Schlumberger Ltd

   By Bowdeya Tweh 
 

Oilfield-services giant Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB) released its first-quarter earnings report before the market opened Friday. Here are some remarks from the company's report:

On the global oil market:

"The absence of global stock builds in the first quarter, supported by the OPEC- and Russia-led production cuts, confirm that the oil market is in balance," Chief Executive Paal Kibsgaard said. "More importantly, after three consecutive years of dramatic underinvestment in global E&P spending, the worldwide production base has started to show the anticipated signs of weakness with noticeable year-over-year production declines appearing in several countries such as Angola, Norway, Mexico, Malaysia, China, and Indonesia."

On U.S. shale market:

"Production challenges in US shale are emerging that are linked to infill drilling well-to-well interference, the potential lower production of step-out drilling from Tier 1 acreage, and significant infrastructure constraints."

On pending supply challenges:

"It is, therefore, becoming increasingly likely that the industry will face growing supply challenges over the coming year and a significant increase in global E&P investment will be required to minimize the impending deficit."

On business growth:

"We remain optimistic about the outlook for sustainable activity growth in our global business over the course of 2018 and into 2019. This is driven by higher customer activity and our ability to capture a major share of the emerging opportunities as performance-based contracts and integrated projects continue to gain traction as the preferred business models for many of our customers."

Write to Bowdeya Tweh at bowdeya.tweh@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 20, 2018 09:39 ET (13:39 GMT)

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