Houston Oil Giant SLB Still Enabling Russian Oil Production Despite U.S. Sanctions

The SLB headquarters in Houston, Texas, US, on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. SLB agreed to acquire rival oilfield service provider ChampionX Corp. for $7.8 billion in an all-stock deal, a move that will bulk up SLBs portfolio as aging shale fields prompt US drillers to seek better technology to maintain oil and gas production. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

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When the U.S. rolled out fresh sanctions targeting Russia’s oil sector in January 2025, prohibiting American citizens from providing oilfield services to Russian entities, Houston-based energy giant SLB was widely expected to finally exit the market it had promised to leave three years earlier.

Documents obtained by the analytics firm Dallas revealed the company – formerly known as Schlumberger – continued transferring proprietary drilling technology to Russian manufacturers as recently as February 2025, just weeks after the new restrictions took effect.

The evidence includes engineering drawings for specialized oil extraction equipment, non-disclosure agreements and production contracts between SLB’s Russian subsidiary and local manufacturers. The materials, dated February 2025, detail the transfer of designs for rotors and stators used in electric submersible pumps—critical components that keep Russian oil flowing from deep wells.

Ukraine has gone further than Western governments by adding SLB to its list of international war sponsors. In a 2023 designation, the National Agency for Corruption Prevention wrote that “the American company SLB plays a critical role for the aggressor state, occupying 8% of the Russian oil-service market.” The agency noted that SLB itself has acknowledged contributing more than $4.5 billion in taxes to the Russian economy and employing 11,500 people across factories and service centers inside the country.

A Profitable Russian Operation

SLB generated $1.4 billion in revenue from Russia in 2024, roughly 4% of the company’s global total, according to their website. While that may seem modest for a corporation with nearly $50 billion in assets, it represents continued access to advanced Western technology for Russia’s energy sector, Moscow’s primary source of war funding.

Oleksii Plastun, a professor at Sumy State University, told me in an interview that “There is always a risk–profit balance for companies. When profits prevail, firms are often willing to absorb reputational damage and external pressure. But if that pressure becomes persistent and high enough, the balance can shift — and so can their decision to remain in Russia.”

The world’s largest oilfield services company has repeatedly drawn scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. In 2023, Senator Bob Menendez demanded explanations for SLB’s continued Russian investments. In 2024, more than 50 House members called for tougher oil sector sanctions.

Despite repeated claims that it was “winding down” its Russian operations, SLB has deepened its presence in the country, according to a August 2024 report from the investigative organization Global Witness. The report highlighted how a Russian SLB subsidiary signed a fresh contract in December 2023 with the state-backed oil and gas research institute VNIGNI to support geological modeling for future fossil fuel development.

Meanwhile, the company is aggressively recruiting young Russian engineers, doubling its university job-fair activity from 2023 to 2024. The watchdog’s analysis suggests SLB is preparing for a long-term future in Russia, not an exit.

Plastun noted that SLB “simply seized the opportunity left by the withdrawal of Western competitors like Halliburton and Baker Hughes,” taking advantage of a regulatory environment “where many prefer not to see” how companies work around sanctions.

The pattern continued into 2025. The reported highlighted how on February 11, 2025—one month after new U.S. sanctions took effect—Schlumberger Technology Company initiated a search for contractors to manufacture equipment components based on proprietary SLB designs. The production chain appears straightforward: Russian contractors manufacture components from SLB designs, the parts are assembled at the Tyumen factory, and finished equipment is deployed to Russian oilfields where it’s maintained by Schlumberger personnel.

The Sanctions Gap

SLB operates through a complex corporate structure spanning multiple continents, with its Russian division formally overseen by European subsidiaries. That offshore arrangement complicates direct U.S. enforcement, even though the January 2025 sanctions explicitly prohibit American citizens from providing oilfield services to Russia “directly or indirectly.”

In January, CEO Olivier Le Peuch said the company was “reviewing the new sanctions” and argued that SLB’s voluntary steps, such as halting shipments of products and technology from its global facilities into Russia, were “aligned with the new restrictions.”

Despite the new rules, enforcement has grown noticeably looser. “Under the Trump administration, tighter scrutiny of SLB is unlikely, driven by shifts in enforcement priorities, business lobbying and a greater tolerance for ambiguity in sanctions compliance,” Treston Wheat, chief geopolitical officer at the consultancy Insight Forward, told me in an interview.

“The White House has deprioritized aggressive sanctions enforcement by scaling back structures like the DOJ’s Task Force KleptoCapture and focusing instead on broader strategic and economic goals. This institutional retrenchment reduces the bandwidth for detailed investigations into borderline cases such as SLB’s operations in Russia,” he added.

Wheat added that major U.S. energy firms benefit from “a political environment that prizes flexibility and deal-making over strict enforcement,” creating space for SLB to operate in a regulatory gray zone.

Without Western technological support and maintenance, much of Russia’s oilfield infrastructure would rapidly degrade – a process already accelerated by continued Ukrainian drone strikes. Kyiv’s kinetic pressure is most effective when matched by robust Western sanctions, ensuring that once drones damage Russia’s production capacity, Western companies are not the ones helping bring it back online.