HOUSTON, Jan 23 - U.S. oilfield services company SLB said on Friday it could rapidly expand its operations in Venezuela, but only if the right licensing, safety parameters and compliance measures are established.
SLB's chief executive signalled heightened customer interest after the company took part in meetings with U.S. officials to discuss possible investment in Venezuela following the removal of President Nicolas Maduro in early January. "We are already receiving a lot of inquiries from our customers," Olivier Le Peuch said during a post-earnings conference call. He added a cautionary note on the conditions needed for a broader re-entry: "I would have to preface this with the right conditions, including licensing, including payments and operating licence will have to be put in place."
The comments came alongside other indicators that major oilfield services firms are preparing to re-establish a presence in Venezuela. Halliburton, which also took part in White House discussions, said this week it would seek to re-enter Venezuela as soon as commercial and legal terms - including payment certainty - were resolved. The company said it was working through the mechanics of licences that it said were certain to fall in place.
SLB described itself as the only international service company actively operating in Venezuela at present, providing services for an integrated oil company under that oil major's licence. The company noted that Chevron remains the only U.S. oil major producing crude in Venezuela, operating roughly 240,000 barrels per day through joint ventures with the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
On its earnings call SLB reported a stronger-than-expected fourth-quarter profit and said it had maintained active facilities, equipment and local personnel in Venezuela. The firm recalled a period about a decade ago when it generated more than $1 billion in peak annual revenue from Venezuela and employed over 3,000 people in the country. The company currently has about 80 Venezuelans working in-country and more than 1,000 Venezuelan employees overall within SLB.
Halliburton's recent hiring activity also points to preparation for a return. The company has posted job listings seeking resumes for a range of positions in Venezuela, including engineers and technicians, according to a job board posting last week. Market observers note that both SLB and Halliburton are commonly seen as among the best-positioned service providers to capture new investment if foreign companies move back into Venezuela.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that U.S. oil companies will soon start drilling for oil in Venezuela, even as firms voiced caution about how quickly they could resume larger-scale operations. Drafts of a proposed reform to Venezuela's hydrocarbons law were reported to show a framework that would allow foreign and local companies to operate oilfields independently through a new contract model, to commercialize output and to receive sale proceeds even if they acted as minority partners with PDVSA.
Analyst commentary reflected the view that any policy changes or clearer commercial terms could create openings for international oilfield service firms. Stifel analyst Stephen Gengaro has said SLB and Halliburton are among the companies best positioned to benefit from any new investment flows into Venezuela.
At the same time, executives and market participants emphasised that concrete operational expansion would hinge on several specific conditions being satisfied - licensing, payment mechanisms and appropriate safety and compliance arrangements - before substantial scaling of activity could take place.
This mix of political statements, draft legal changes and preparatory hiring and asset maintenance by service providers suggests industry participants are monitoring developments closely while stopping short of committing to immediate large-scale redeployments until commercial and legal certainties are clarified.