The world's national oil companies (NOCs) are increasingly turning to third-party oil services groups, rather than forming partnerships with their peers, to assist them with the development of new fields.

According to the chief executive of Schlumberger, Andrew Gould, this trend has come on the back of a number of the world's biggest companies shedding their own oil services departments and cutting down on the number of specialist engineers and geologists they employed in times of low prices.

Despite oil prices now being at record highs, this reliance upon companies such as Schlumberger has continued, with Mr Gould confirming that his company's fastest-growing revenue stream now comes from NOCs, with the firm having doubled its workforce in Russia within the past two years alone.

Such a demand for Schlumberger's services now allows it to recruit upto 5,000 graduates from 200 universities across 20 countries each year, while Mr Gould also explained to the newspaper that being free from government involvement allows it to operate in countries where political tensions have forced other firms to retreat.

Alongside aiding NOCs and IOCs in their production operations, the firm is also assisting with their research and development and training programmes, with Schlumberger presently operating technology centres in Anu Dhabi, Mexico, Russia and Malaysia, aimed at educating the next generation of oil and gas engineers.

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