World's 10 largest oilfield services companies

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It could be argued that the most difficult job in the oil and gas industry is oilfield services. Most oilfields tend to be located in geographically remote areas, and that's before you even start drilling. The logistics required to extract, process and transfer crude oil or gas would make most companies think twice about even entering the business in the first place.

So it was with this in mind that we at ArabianOilandGas.com decided to pay our respects and give you our list of the top 10 world's largest oilfield services companies.

The criteria we have used has been based solely on a company's revenues for 2008. However, there are a couple of anomalies that we should point out.

First of all we decided that we would exclude all NOCs and IOCs.

Second you will notice Fluor finished sixth on the list, but boasts higher revenues than any other company aside from Schlumberger. The simple explanation is that Fluor operates across a number of industries which accounts for its higher revenues.

Anyone who is au fait with the oilfield services industry will also notice a few glaring emissions. Where is Bechtel, Samsung Heavy Industries, Chiyoda, Hyundai Heavy Industries, SK Engineering, Technip, Tecnicas Reunidas etc?

To be honest a few of the above named companies should maybe have made the top 10, but during our research we found it almost impossible to separate the oilfield services side of their businesses from the rest. All we can do is apologise and promise to compile a list of the top 10 oil and gas contractors in the future.

   1. Schlumberger Limited
   2. Halliburton
   3. Saipem
   4. Transocean Ltd.
   5. Baker Hughes
   6. Fluor
   7. Weatherford International
   8. BJ Services Company
   9. Petrofac
  10. China Oilfield Services Ltd.

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(Revenues in US dollars)

1. Schlumberger Limited ($27.16 billion)

When Conrad and Marcel founded the initial incarnation of Schlumberger in France back in 1926, I’m sure even they didn’t know that it would one day become the largest oilfield services company in the world.

Schlumberger now operates in around 80 countries and has a staggering 82,000 employees. The company, registered in the Dutch Antilles and headquartered in Houston, Paris and The Hague supplies numerous products and services including  seismic acquisition and processing, formation evaluation, well testing and directional drilling, well cementing and stimulation, artificial lift, well completions and consulting, and software and information management.

The CEO of the company, Andrew Gould, started work in the internal audit department at Schlumberger's Paris office in 1975. Since then he has held a number of positions within the company before assuming his current role in 2003.  

In the Middle East Schlumberger are involved in numerous large scale projects for companies including Saudi Aramco, including the huge Dharan field, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) and Qatar Petroleum (QP) among many others.

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