“Sequential performance was heavily impacted by Production- and Cameron-related activity in North America land, as seen by the 12% sequential decrease in our consolidated North America revenue. OneStim revenue dropped 25% sequentially as we decided to warm-stack a number of our fleets during the latter part of the quarter, and as we focused on securing dedicated contracts for the first half of 2019 early in the fourth-quarter tendering cycle. Drilling revenue increased 1% sequentially as we continued to mobilize additional drilling rigs for our Integrated Drilling Services (IDS) projects in Norway, Saudi Arabia, India, Argentina, Ecuador, China, and Iraq. Reservoir Characterization revenue decreased 1% sequentially driven by lower Wireline and OneSurface® revenue and limitedyear-end sales of Software Integrated Solutions (SIS) software and WesternGeco multiclient seismic licenses. Cameron revenue declined 3% sequentially, mostly due to lower revenue from our OneSubsea and Valves & Measurement product lines.
“From a macro perspective, the dramatic fall in oil prices in the fourth quarter was largely driven by the US shale production surprising to the upside as a result of the surge in activity earlier in the year, and as geopolitics negatively impacted the global demand- and supply-balance sentiments. The combination of these factors, together with a largesell-off in the equity markets due to concerns around global growth and increasing US interest rates, created a near perfect storm to close out 2018.
“Looking forward to 2019, we expect a more positive supply- and demand-balance sentiment to lead to a gradual recovery in the price of oil over the course of the year, as the OPEC and Russia cuts take full effect; the effect of lower activity in North America land in the second half of 2018 impacts production growth; the dispensations from the Iran export sanctions expire and are not renewed; and as the US and China continue to work toward a solution to their ongoing trade dispute.
“In the meantime, the recent oil price volatility has introduced more uncertainty around the E&P spending outlook for 2019, with customers generally taking a more conservative approach at the start of the year. This will once again push out in time the broad-based recovery in E&P spending that we expected only three months ago.
“However, based on our recent discussions with customers, we are seeing clear signs that E&P investments are starting to normalize and reflect a more sustainable financial stewardship of the global resource base. For the North America land E&P operators, this means that future investments will likely be much closer to the level that can be covered by free cash flow. Conversely, in the international markets apart from the Middle East and Russia, after four years of underinvestment and a focus on maximizing cash flow, the NOCs and independents are starting to see the need to invest in their resource base simply to maintain production at current levels.
“For Schlumberger, this means that even with the current oil prices, we expect solid, single-digit growth in the international markets while in North America land, the increased cost of capital and focus on aligning investments closer to free cash flow has introduced more uncertainty to the outlook for both drilling and production activity.
“In this environment, we have built significant flexibility into our operating plan for 2019, which gives us the means and confidence to address any investment and activity scenario. Furthermore, the foundation for our 2019 plans is a clear commitment to generate sufficient cash flow to cover all our business needs, without increasing net debt. After a very strong free cash flow performance in the second half of 2018, we are confident in our ability to further improve our liquidity position in 2019, through our focus ontop-line growth, incremental margins, capital discipline, and careful management of working capital.”
Other Events
During the quarter, Schlumberger repurchased 2.1 million shares of its common stock at an average price of $48.44 per share, for a total purchase price of $100 million.
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