SLB Climbs 11% as Offshore Growth Offsets Middle East Weakness

SLB (SLB) climbed 11% on Friday to close at $52.42, its biggest one-day gain in months, after the oilfield-services company reported second-quarter results that beat Wall Street estimates and pointed to growth outside the Middle East. Volume ran more than double the stock’s 20-day average. Buyers moved early.

Offshore work carried the quarter

SLB reported before Friday’s open. Revenue reached $8.97 billion, up 5% from a year earlier and 3% from the first quarter, and topped the roughly $8.76 billion analysts had modeled. Adjusted earnings came to $0.55 a share, four cents above the consensus estimate. On a GAAP basis the company earned $0.52, down 30% from a year earlier, and net income of $786 million fell 22%. Production Systems, the company’s largest division, generated $3.77 billion, up 29% from a year earlier. International revenue rose 3% from the first quarter and North America revenue rose 4%. Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said broad-based sequential growth across international markets, led by offshore activity in Latin America, Europe and Africa, and Asia, more than offset continued disruptions in the Middle East. Investors had worried the region would drag the quarter down.

Digital and data-center revenue kept climbing

Two smaller businesses drew attention. Digital revenue rose to $697 million, up 18% from a year earlier, at a pretax margin near 28%. The company’s data-center solutions unit, which supplies power and infrastructure for computing sites, reported revenue of $186 million, an 80% jump from a year earlier; through the first half of 2026 that business grew 63%. Both sit well outside the drilling work that still defines the company, and both are growing faster than it. The company kept returning cash. SLB repurchased 12 million shares for $648 million during the quarter and declared a quarterly dividend of $0.295 a share.

A rebound that retook lost ground

The gain extended a recovery. SLB has risen about 12% over the past 30 days, and Friday’s close left it 10% below its 90-day high of $58.01 and 17% above the 90-day low of $44.96 touched earlier in the quarter. The size of the pop matched the volume behind it: 28.9 million shares changed hands, 2.3 times the 20-day average. The advance ranked SLB among the S&P 500’s biggest gainers of the day. The stock still trades below its high from earlier in the quarter, yet the report closed much of that gap in a single session. Sequentially, both GAAP earnings and net income edged higher, a reminder that the year-over-year declines measure against a stronger 2025. The move was earnings, not drift.

What to watch

SLB said it is targeting more than $2.4 billion in share repurchases in 2026 and more than $4 billion in total shareholder returns for the year. It tied the demand it sees to energy-security concerns that it said are reviving global oil and gas investment, especially offshore and in deepwater. Two questions carry into next quarter. Its next report will show whether the international and offshore momentum management described holds, and whether Middle East activity stabilizes.

This is a general-market summary for information only — not investment advice, and not a recommendation regarding any security.