By Erik Dolson
A stock service I subscribe to recently recommended the company Schlumberger.
According to Yahoo Finance, “Houston, Texas-based Schlumberger Limited is a leading oilfield services company, providing services to the oil and gas explorers, and producers across the world. Through oilfield services contracts, Schlumberger helps the upstream energy players to locate oil and gas, and to drill and evaluate hydrocarbon wells…”
One of those “oil and gas explorers and producers” is Russia. Schlumberger still does business there.
Not only that, but over the last couple of weeks, stories have appeared that Russian employees of Schlumberger are complaining the company is not helping them receive exemptions from Russia’s mobilization for the war in Ukraine.
So in essence, Schlumberger is not only directly and financially helping Russia, an enemy of freedom and threat to the world, but is assisting Putin in putting more soldiers in the field against Ukraine.
Now, I’m a capitalist by most measures and for a long time have believed that “stakeholder” capitalism is an oxymoron, and the primary duty of an enterprise is to earn profits for its owners.
Still, at some point I can be convinced that aiding the enemy for profit is a traitorous act. I don’t know how to view it any differently than if Schlumberger’s Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch was texting coordinates of Ukrainian soldiers or equipment directly to Moscow for elimination by Russian rockets.
To be clear, I have no evidence he is doing so. Nor do I have any evidence he is not. I do not know if there’s a price for which he might be willing to send those coordinates, given the company has elected to stay in Russia and help that country.
I don’t know if the Schlumberger CEO might send data on geological formations under a nursery school to increase damage and devastation — all in the interest of “a quick cessation of hostilities," to use his words in a slightly different context.
But even if I’m only speculating on the depths to which Schlumberger might descend to earn a profit, I’m going to pass on the recommendation to buy Schlumberger stock. Not because the company cares what an obscure writer in the “Middle of Nowhere” Oregon thinks about its policies, and not because it will really make any difference in the war.
I’ll pass because it matters to me where my income comes from, and I don’t want a single dime from helping the horde from Mordor.
Wonder if Schlumberger has been forced into that relationship; still, if they can't protect their skilled workers they really ought to depart. While the well logging is not really highly skilled the interpretation leans heavily on knowledge and skill.