Talk:Schlumberger

Pronunciation

Pronunciation - schlum-burger? Something else? --Johnruble 13:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not simple. The name is a Germanic one, originating in the Alsace area of France. However, the eponymous founders of the company were francophones. So the company's founders were pronouncing a German name with a French accent. Since the company's founding, however, it has gone on to have a presence in many countries, and in some of those countries, certain sounds in the name are pronounced with difficulty; specifically the IPA [y] (French "chute") and the IPA [ʒ] (last sound of "mirage"). So in the those countries, substitutions are made. Cornellier 22:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Very much not simple. In my experience, talking with Texas and Oklahoma oil people who are educated and trying to pronounce it correctly, it's more or less "slum-bur-ʒay", accent on the 3rd syllable; a surprising number of people just can't do "schl" even when they're adept at some other common non-English phonology... And significant number of people pronounce the 2nd syllable like "bear". --studerby 22:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

The company, as well as the stock holders, call it "shlum-bur-shay" or "shlum-bar-jay and "Schlum-burger" comes from some MSNBC stock analysit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.114.219.196 (talk) 00:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

According to my experience a large number of people within Schlumberger calls it Sh-lum-be-jaayer with the "b" sound very short. --Jingshen 05:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Many French employees of Schlumberger have taken to pronouncing the "u" as "oo", thus imitating the germanic pronunciation for that part of the word, which then comes out as "shloom-bear-ZHAY". This is frowned upon by the family itself, which wanted very much to avoid confusion between Alsace and Germany, and keeps pronoucing the "um" diphthong as in the French word "un" (I don't know the IPA for this, possibly ũ or ĩ). This makes it very distinctive, but even less pronounceable to other common mortals. Based on this, however, "shlum-bear-zhay" is definitely the closest English approximation, as long as you barely pronounce the "m" and shorten the "bear" syllable. (Note: I am an employee of Schlumberger and I am originally French) Claude 01:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Company editors?

This article reads like it was written by the company. It'd be nice if there were other things presented in the article. --andye — Preceding undated comment added 13:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

The article reads like a marketing brochure of the company. We want to know where and how the company evolved and not whether it is going to provide excellent and advanced services or not. Please tell us what were stumbling blocks in establishing the company in remote and hostile locations around the world and not whether these office are "looked upon for inspiration" during the life of the oil field !!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.230.248.1 (talk) 14:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• I do not think the company is marketing anything in anyway. I believe that whoever created this article simply copied the contents of this page on the official SLB website: "Schlumberger, Backgrounder". As a result most contents on this article is still the exact same. In fact, I think this discussion should be ended and deleted. --Jingshen 06:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Why should a discussion be ended simply because Jingsen has "found" the true reason for the shabby marketing text on the website. Please stop quoting annual profits in US dollars here as nobody is really wanting to know that through academic sites such as Wikipedia. I am going to report this to the website administrators. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anipilot (talk • contribs) 09:47, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This discussion occurred Dec 06, when the article was largely a cut & paste of SLB's about-us page. It is typical to give annual profits for public US companies in US dollars. See Microsoft. Cheers, --guyzero | talk 15:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I convinced this company is using Wikipedia to market itself as well ! A company's repute is built through its actions and not words...especially not through a academic learning and information reference such as Wikipedia, the following two paragraphs are just shamefull propaganda. (note the 'we' in the second para)

Competitive Advantage Schlumberger offers its clients four key advantages:

Deep domain knowledge of exploration and production operations gained through 75 years of experience The service industry's longest commitment to technology and innovation through a network of 23 research, development and technology centers A global reach in 80 countries coupled to strong local experience and the diversity in thought, background and knowledge that more that 140 nationalities bring A commitment to excellence in service delivery anytime, anywhere.

Research and Development The company was founded by the two Schlumberger brothers who invented wireline logging as a technique for obtaining downhole data in oil and gas wells. Today, it continues to build on the industry's longest track record of providing leading edge E&P technology to develop new advancements-from reservoir to surface. Schlumberger has always invested significant time and money on research and engineering as a long-term strategy to support and grow its technology leadership. Short-term business cycles do not affect this. In 2005, we invested $505 million in R&D for our oilfield activities. Schlumberger invests more each year in R&D than all other oilfield services companies combined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anipilot (talk • contribs) 15:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

'Surely you jest The largest oilfield services company in the world with 70billion in market cap does not need to market itself on wikipedia. I dont think potential clients navigate through a webclopedia to find contracts... i agree its a lazy editor copying and pasting from SLB's website. feel free to delete/omit/edit as necessary — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.240.104.223 (talk) 00:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Clearly some editing has been done by Schlumberger employees — editing from IPs 163.183.x.x through 163.188.x.x are from inside Schlumberger — but I agree that it sounds more like cut-and-paste editing than self promotion. —Travis ^C/_T\^U 13:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Compare some of the other company articles, e.g. Halliburton. This article needs lots of attention. LeadSongDog 03:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Trim org chart?

Hi! Does it benefit the reader to have the large management listing on this article? I suggest we trim off the Technologies, Areas, and EMS sections and leave just the top managers for brevity and readability. Any thoughts? cheers, --guyzero | talk 02:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Domain Name Error

The article said, "In 1987,...and the domain name www.slb.com was registered by the company" which is not possible since there was no registration of domain names in 1987, nor world wide web. The world wide web was named in May of 1990 according to the world's first web site http://info.cern.ch/ which is still in existence.

So I don't know when slb was registered but it was not in 1987.

Nick Beeson (talk) 18:04, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I've put it back in and added the reference: this comes directly from the company's website. This is an interesting situation, perhaps someone can shed light on what Schlumberger actually registered in 1987? AniRaptor2001 01:54, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Schlumberger had SINet running back then as a TCP/IP network. It is important to note that Internet ≠ World Wide Web - In other words, the Internet, and ARPANET before it, existed long before the first website came online. "The Web" runs as a service on top of the Internet. In any case, the actual text from Schlumberger's history page is, "Registered slb.com as an Internet domain name". That's slb.com, not www.slb.com, so I've corrected the text of the article to match the actual history. Cheers —Travis^talk 02:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Australia corruption

As I've said before: the following is interesting and probably true; however, the citations do not directly reference Schlumberger, so we cannot say for certain that Schlumberger was committing these infractions. I'm putting it here so we can work on it. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 15:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Luckily it doesn't cost me anything to keep reverting. Geco, if you believe I'm trying to hide any infractions SLB has committed, please see this edit by me. My issue with your contribution is your failure to provide sources that specifically accuse SLB of committing the infractions permitted by the loopholes in the labor laws. AniRaptor2001 (talk) 16:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

To reduce cost's and increase profit's to Schlumberger shareholder's, foreign workers were hired(salary based on cost of living from there home country even when working in Australia. (this is possible as Australian Migration Zone allowed by department of Immigration), to offset their costs, to survive a downturn in the industry and to significantly undercut competitors in bids.

Australia VISA rules were stretched to the limit and were investigated by Department of Immigration and Affairs(DIMA) Australia who found that Schlumberger/Westerngeco sub contractor had been using a loophole in the 457 VISA laws to inadvertently underpay foreign workers. This loophole has now been resolved without compensation to past or present employees and contractors by issuing 456 VISA's.

For Australian citizens working offshore for Schlumberger/WesternGeco seismic department they were deliberately sent out from Australia as Schlumberger/WesternGeco refuses to pay taxes for its Australian employees as they cannot get the tax paid reimbursed back like it is possible for other non-Australian seismic crew working in Australia.

Criticism

Schlumberger has been notorious for law violations in various countries. This reflects the difference between proclaimed and real sequence of the Core Values of this company and its management. It has been willfully bringing in illegal workforce in Kazakhstan, as well as regularly smuggling tools and equipment from tax-free projects like Tengiz (TCO) and Karachaganak (KPO) and deviating from tax payments.

Do you have a source for this? AniRaptor2001 (talk) 14:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dalton Boutte

This guy is the president of the company. This article is up for deletion currently. Editors are welcome to comment. Ikip 23:08, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Schlumberger told BP to shot down the Deepwater Horizon

BP contracted Schlumberger (SLB) to run the Cement Bond Log (CBL) test that was the final test on the plug that was skipped. The people testifying have been very coy about mentioning this, and you'll see why.

SLB is an extremely highly regarded (and incredibly expensive) service company. They place a high standard on safety and train their workers to shut down unsafe operations.

SLB gets out to the Deepwater Horizon to run the CBL, and they find the well still kicking heavily, which it should not be that late in the operation. SLB orders the "company man" (BP's man on the scene that runs the operation) to dump kill fluid down the well and shut-in the well. The company man refuses. SLB in the very next sentence asks for a helo to take all SLB personel back to shore. The company man says there are no more helo's scheduled for the rest of the week (translation: you're here to do a job, now do it). SLB gets on the horn to shore, calls SLB's corporate HQ, and gets a helo flown out there at SLB's expense and takes all SLB personel to shore.

6 hours later, the platform explodes.

Pick your jaw up off the floor now. No CBL was run after the pressure tests because the contractor high-tailed it out of there. If this story is true, the company man (who survived) should go to jail for 11 counts of negligent homicide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.142.7 (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Date of Forex Purchase?

This source says that the first Forex was purchased in 1959 and was the company's first large drilling purchase. This is contrary to what is in the article.Americasroof (talk) 17:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)