The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

Re: SLB 4Q14 CC

All told, things didn’t sound as bad as I expected. As compared to 3Q14, 4Q14 sales were +2% in North America and -1% in the RoW. This statement from the CC stands out:

“The significant drop in oil prices has put pressure on our customers to further reduce their cost per barrel, and we are actively engaged with most of them to find ways to generate the required cost savings…”

The above may be boilerplate language, but I'm inclined to think there's at least a smidgen of upside for oil-service companies from their clients' desire to optimize performance in this difficult pricing environment.

In North America, SLB expects 2015 E&P spending to decline 25-30% YoY, consistent with third-party surveys. In the RoW, SLB said it’s too soon to quantify the YoY reduction in E&P spending, but they didn’t strongly disagree with third-party surveys predicting a 10-15% decline.

p.s. The 25% dividend increase may not be as bullish as it seems insofar as SLB expects 2015 cap-ex to be about $1B less than in 2014.