TWO-AND-A-HALF months have gone by really fast for Baker Hughes, a General Electric company (BHGE) — a merger entity between GE Oil & Gas and Baker Hughes which was completed on July 3 this year.
The new company, called “Baker Hughes, a GE company”, has begun trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the “BHGE” ticker.
BHGE president for Asia Pacific, Visal Leng, said the merger has created the world’s second largest oilfield equipment and service provider by revenue.
“It brings new capabilities to the industry. Beyond just upstream, mid-stream and downstream segments, we can now offer end-to-end full-stream products and services, coupled with GE’s digital capabilities.
“We now have a unique combination of oil and gas products and services as GE was mainly products while Baker Hughes comprised mainly services. With the addition of digital capabilities, we have a powerful portfolio to offer our customers.
“In Kuala Lumpur, we have close to 1,000 employees with the bigger portion joining BHGE from Baker Hughes. The first month was to assure them (the employees) that it was business as usual for the company and to share the benefits of the merger with our customers,” he told NST Business and Berita Harian recently.
With headquarters in London and Houston, the combined company has roughly US$23 billion (RM96 billion) in annual revenue and offers a wide range of oilfield equipment, including blowout preventers, pumps, drilling and chemicals, for oil producers in 120 countries.
Asked if the merger was timely, Visal said the timing was favourable, especially given the current state of the industry.
“There has been a wave of consolidation and with the minimal overlap between GE Oil & Gas and Baker Hughes, we have created a new company which is uniquely positioned to help customers tackle the challenges during this downturn.
“Our full-stream capabilities help customers minimise integration risks that they would have to take on if they went with two separate companies. On the timing, history will tell but I believe this is happening at the right time because at the height of the oil and gas industry a few years ago, we would probably not be able to have this merger.”
On the industry outlook, Visal said 2017 and 2018 are not likely to bring about a major recovery but the market should stabilise.
“For the Malaysian and Asia-Pacific markets, we don’t expect a quick pick-up in activity, unlike the shale gas (industry) in the United States. We foresee stable activity and no big uptick with smaller technology-driven projects driving growth.
“BHGE will be leveraging our digital capabilities and we think Malaysia is ripe for the adoption of such new technologies,” he added.
It was previously reported that the merger would put GE and Baker Hughes in a well position to drive past Halliburton and rival only Schlumberger NV for dominance in the global oilfield service market.