New York, May 30, 2026, 12:02 EDT
- SLB settled at $54.55 on Friday, slipping 1%. The shares had reached a 52-week high of $58.82 earlier in the holiday-shortened week.
- The company’s most recent updates are digital. It agreed to buy Tachyus and expanded its Vår Energi planning deal.
- Investors go into next week watching oil-price moves and Middle East disruption, with questions about whether SLB’s software push is enough to balance out trouble in its main drilling business.
SLB N.V. shares lost ground Friday, dropping for a third session in a row after touching a 52-week high Tuesday. The move came as investors took profits in oilfield-services stocks and waited for more evidence that digital gains will help stabilize earnings.
The New York Stock Exchange was closed Monday for Memorial Day and did not open over the weekend. Normal hours are 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. SLB ended Friday at $54.55, down about 1%, after more than 31 million shares traded, according to market data.
SLB shares have slipped after hitting new highs, despite first-quarter results showing Middle East pressures. The stock dropped about 4.8% from the prior Friday’s $57.28 close to May 29, though it touched $58.82 on May 26.
Service stocks moved lower again. Halliburton dropped roughly 1.2% Friday, Baker Hughes lost 1.3%. The VanEck Oil Services ETF, which tracks oilfield-services shares, was also down. Oilfield-services companies supply drilling and production tech to energy firms, so their stocks tend to track exploration spending outlooks.
SLB released news late in the week, saying May 29 that it agreed to buy Tachyus Corp., a Houston-based software company that does reservoir modeling and optimization. “Reservoir management is becoming increasingly dynamic,” SLB Digital president Rakesh Jaggi said, as operators look for more oil and gas in current fields. SLB
SLB said a day ago it had grown its digital partnership with Vår Energi for the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The two firms use SLB’s Delfi platform, a cloud tool for shared engineering data, to tie together exploration, well planning, subsea design and field development. SLB said some planning cycles had dropped from months to days already.
Software is now the key driver for the stock. SLB posted Q1 revenue of $8.72 billion in April, a 3% rise from last year. Adjusted EBITDA dropped 12% to $1.77 billion. Earnings, excluding charges and credits, came in at 52 cents a share, down 28%.
SLB CEO Olivier Le Peuch called it a “challenging start to the year” on Middle East disruption. Still, he pointed to a year-on-year revenue gain outside the region, boosted by ChampionX and demand for digital and data-center services. Digital revenue was up 9% for the quarter, the company reported, with annualized recurring revenue in the segment hitting $1.02 billion. SLB
Oil is still the big story for markets. U.S. crude traded at $87.76 on Friday, off 1.28%, as investors tracked U.S.-Iran peace talks and any hint of renewed supply routes. Falling crude prices can pull down inflation, but a longer slide might push producers to cut back drilling.
Recovery could be in play. Reuters said in April that SLB and Baker Hughes were both looking for more exploration and production spending, citing tighter global supply and the push for more investment in North America. James West, analyst at Melius Research, told Reuters he sees “seasonal recoveries around the world” and expects Middle East activity to pick up as the conflict fades. Reuters
The risks are clear enough: further declines in oil if there’s a durable peace could see producers put off some projects; lasting Middle East trouble could crank up logistics and demobilization costs and cut into margins. SLB already flagged an expected hit from the conflict of 6 to 8 cents per share to second-quarter earnings, and revenue in its Middle East and Asia unit dropped 10% in Q1.
SLB has no earnings release on tap for the coming week. The next results date is July 24, with the second-quarter report for the period ended June 30 set for 7:00 a.m. Eastern. The conference call starts at 9:30 a.m., the company said.
The stock is now more sensitive to macro news—crude prices, how Middle East supply looks, and if Friday’s surge in trading was just investors cashing out after a rally or something bigger for oilfield-services valuations.
