The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

I agree that SLB's new Houston core analysis center in Houston is a logical extension of the purchase of TerraTek. There is certainly an intention to become a direct competitor to CLB. How big a dent, if any, SLB can make in CLB's business is the million$(*x) question. I don't know the current state of mind but the words i've heard in the past indicated a great deal of admiration for CLB's management and business. My interpretation is that CLB is seen as the MCD of the core analysis business - they are efficient and they produce a product that the customer is happy with and the customer gets the product quickly. Of course, the customer goes in not expecting to find filet mignon on the menu. SLB sees themselves as being more innovative and better equipped or more willing to address specialized analyses. SLB will also claim that they are far ahead of CLB in understanding the physics of rock deformation and fluid flow in the reservoir and in cores so that their interpretations will be superior (i have no idea if this is true since i only hear one side and i don't do cores). Of course, SLB also serves more generic analytical requests but i don't know (nor could i say) what share of that is for internal purposes versus external clients. Keep in mind that SLB does a decent amount of field management work where SLB may run core analyses for their own benefit. I doubt if CLB has a similar business segment.

hopefully that's enough to be useful but not so much that i get in trouble.
charlie