SLB announces acquisition of Tachyus

SLB has announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Tachyus Corp., a Houston-based technology company specialising in high-speed reservoir modelling and optimisation

This acquisition of the artificial intelligence-driven, physics-based modeling software company aims to meaningfully enhance SLB's reservoir management, production, and recovery capabilities across the energy sector. The transaction is expected to close shortly after the signing of the agreement, subject to the satisfaction of customary operational conditions.

Strategic portfolio enhancements

The proposed acquisition significantly strengthens SLB's overarching digital portfolio with differentiated, physics-based reservoir modeling capabilities. These advanced digital tools enable faster reservoir management decisions, which are critical to helping operators maximise overall resource recovery. Additionally, the integrated technology helps bridge the traditional gap between long-term development planning and active production execution across both complex and highly mature assets.

Highlighting the strategic importance of this move, Rakesh Jaggi, president of SLB's Digital business, stated, “Reservoir management is becoming increasingly dynamic as operators look to maximise recovery from existing assets”. Jaggi further elaborated on the expected synergies, stating, “The addition of Tachyus will strengthen our ability to deliver operational reservoir management workflows that help customers manage and optimise complex enhanced oil recovery schemes”.

Bridging planning and operations

As operators continually work to maximise recovery from their existing assets and simultaneously improve operational efficiency, the industry demand is rapidly increasing for technologies that support continuous reservoir management. While traditional high-fidelity reservoir simulators effectively support strategic field development decisions to optimise long-term recovery, Tachyus technologies uniquely enable operators to make more tactical decisions in response to rapidly changing operational conditions.

Tachyus achieves this by developing advanced software that seamlessly fuses machine learning with fundamental reservoir physics to effectively model reservoir behaviour under a vast array of different operating conditions. These technologies have the impressive capability to evaluate thousands of distinct reservoir scenarios in mere minutes. This rapid processing empowers reservoir and production teams to dynamically adjust field strategies based on current asset performance data while maintaining strict alignment with longer-term development plans.

The Aqueon Platform's global footprint

A core component of the newly acquired technology portfolio is the proprietary Aqueon platform. Highlighting its widespread industry adoption, the platform has already been deployed successfully across more than 7,500 wells globally. Operationally, the Aqueon platform actively supports a wide array of vital field functions, including waterflood management, precision pressure forecasting, and comprehensive production optimisation. Furthermore, it assists operators with saltwater disposal optimisation for complex unconventional operations, alongside driving enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations.

Future digital integration plans

SLB plans to seamlessly integrate Tachyus technology directly into its Delfi digital platform, as well as its Lumi data and AI platform, following the successful closing of the transaction. This deep integration is a crucial technological step that will enable robust, closed-loop reservoir and production management workflows across the organisation.

This strategic acquisition will continuously strengthen SLB's expansive capabilities in AI-driven reservoir modeling through the deployment of combined data- and physics-based models that continuously adapt to evolving reservoir behavior. In addition to acquiring these technological assets, the agreement will also bring additional, highly specialised reservoir engineering, data science, and software development expertise directly into SLB's broader digital organisation.