International oil, gas industry services company eager to cooperate with Belarus

The oil and gas industry services company Schlumberger is interested in cooperation with the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry in oilfield exploration. The statement was made by Georgy Karnaukhov, vice president of the SIS division of Schlumberger in Russia and Central Asia, as he met with Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Minister Andrei Kovkhuto on 17 September, BelTA has learned.

Schlumberger’s representative said: “Our division operates in the Russian Federation and the Caspian basin — Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. We hope that today’s meeting will begin fruitful cooperation with Belarus as well.”

The executive noted that Schlumberger Company is the largest services provider in the oil and gas industry. “The company employs over 120,000 people while our division employs about 400 people. The company’s capitalization is close to $90 billion. Among other things our division is responsible for providing consulting services as well as software. Historically we pay close attention to new technologies. Investments in new technologies represent about 6% of the total volume of investments. In absolute figures the investments are close to those of IBM and Microsoft,” explained the vice president.

The Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Minister thanked representatives of Schlumberger company for their eagerness to talk to specialists of the Ministry. “I hope we will be able to find common grounds in order to tackle the common tasks facing our ministry and your company,” noted Andrei Kovkhuto.

Specialists of the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry, representatives of the Belarusian petrochemical concern Belneftekhim and Belorusneft Company took part in the meeting as well.

Schlumberger is ready to use the available technologies to examine Belarus’ territory using basin modeling for the sake of finding promising areas for follow-up exploration. The company has already performed similar services in the Black Sea basin in Russia and other multiple foreign projects.

Schlumberger Company is a major provider of oil and gas industry services. The company is headquartered in Paris and Houston. The company is the world’s leader in the sphere of technologies and services for the oil and gas industry and boasts considerable expertise with regard to the analysis and interpretation of geological data.