SLB beats third-quarter earnings estimate and agrees to buy Kelvion for about $3.4 billion

The company bought back $656 million of its own shares in the quarter, and its board set a quarterly dividend of $0.295 a share.

SLB posted third-quarter earnings of $0.64 a share, $0.02 better than expected. Revenue came in at $9.45 billion, against $9.37 billion expected. Chief Executive Olivier Le Peuch said the company delivered solid results, with all regions growing from the quarter before.

He pointed to a gradual recovery in the Middle East, growth in North America land, and a broadening of international deepwater activity.

SLB agreed to buy Kelvion, a provider of thermal management and heat exchange technologies, for about $3.4 billion in cash. The company will also take on about $0.7 billion of Kelvion's debt. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027. Separately, SLB completed its purchase of S&P Global Energy's geoscience and petroleum engineering software business on September 1, 2026.

SLB repurchased 12.9 million shares for $656 million in the quarter, bringing nine-month buybacks to $1.76 billion. Its board approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.295 a share, payable January 7, 2027, to holders of record on December 2, 2026.

The Kelvion deal and the software purchase show SLB still putting capital into new businesses while returning cash to shareholders. That mix points to management confidence in the recovery Le Peuch described across the Middle East, North America land and deepwater. This is a read on SLB's own execution, not a shift across the sector, and it says nothing about oilfield demand or crude supply. Taken together, the software and thermal management deals look like a multi-year push to diversify beyond core drilling services. Investors are likely to watch the integration costs of those deals against the pace of buybacks.