News Breakbulk & Project Cargo
Generating buzz
Oilfield service giants banking on data center power windfall
By Autumn Cafiero Giusti
The Big Three oilfield services companies are looking ahead to a surge in power generation projects for US data centers as they work to offset sluggish oil prices while US tariffs continue to eat away at profits.
In the latest earnings period, lower oil and gas prices held back the performance of Baker Hughes, Halliburton and SLB( formerly Schlumberger Ltd.), but the companies say they are exploring opportunities to tap into the rapidly growing data center market. That could result in more project cargo activity from the power generation projects needed to support data centers.
As the world’ s largest providers of oilfield services and equipment, the three Houston-based companies are major drivers of breakbulk steel and industrial project cargo.
Baker Hughes is riding the momentum of liquefied natural gas( LNG) and power generation projects amid softening demand for oilfield services and equipment. Third-quarter orders grew 44 % to $ 4.1 billion in the company’ s industrial and energy business, which includes LNG and power generation, while generating a record backlog of $ 32.1 billion in the segment.
“ This is the age of gas, and Baker Hughes is wellpositioned to benefit,” CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said during the company’ s Oct. 24 earnings call. Simonelli said the company is projecting a 20 % increase in demand for natural gas by 2040, with global LNG demand increasing by at least 75 %.
Baker Hughes secured $ 800 million in orders for LNG equipment for the quarter, including orders for NextDecade Corp.’ s Rio Grande LNG facility at the Port of Brownsville in Texas, and for Sempra Infrastructure’ s Port Arthur project in the state’ s Jefferson County.
A projected $ 1.5 trillion investment in data center infrastructure by 2030 will create significant project cargo demand. Mauvries / Shutterstock. com
In the power generation market, Simonelli said Baker Hughes is on track to achieve its target of $ 1.5 billion in data center orders ahead of its original three-year timeline. Year to date, the company has booked $ 700 million in power generation equipment orders for data center applications.
Globally, consultant McKinsey projects over $ 1.5 trillion in data center infrastructure investments by 2030, which is“ a major opportunity for Baker Hughes,” Simonelli said.
Halliburton is also taking steps to supply power to data centers worldwide, announcing Oct. 14 that it now owns 20 % of Texas-based gas power solutions provider VoltaGrid. The companies signed an agreement for Halliburton to be VoltaGrid’ s international partner for delivering distributed power solutions for data centers outside of North America. VoltaGrid also announced an agreement to deploy 2.3 gigawatts( GW) of power generation capacity to support Oracle’ s next-generation artificial intelligence( AI) data centers.“ We invested early and increased our ownership over time because distributed power is a critical enabler for electrified oilfield service and a growing opportunity set beyond the oilfield,” Halliburton CEO Jeffrey Miller said during the company’ s Oct. 21 third-quarter earnings call.
Amid volatile oil and gas prices, Halliburton is forecasting a 12 % to 13 % decline in North American revenues in the fourth quarter, even though the region’ s revenues exceeded the company’ s expectations and rose 5 % to $ 2.4 billion in the third quarter.
“ We fully expect the recovery will come quickly in North America,” Miller said.
Halliburton is forecasting it will take a $ 60 million hit from US tariffs in the fourth quarter— nearly doubling the previous quarter’ s tariff costs.
Driving revenues
The third quarter marked the first time SLB has disclosed its data center revenue, which shot up 140 % to $ 331 million for the first nine months of 2025 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to an Oct. 17 earnings report. SLB’ s data center business designs and manufactures critical infrastructure components including modular data center enclosures, cooling systems and other hardware.
SLB’ s overall revenues for the third quarter fell 3 % to $ 8.9 billion amid commodity price setbacks in the company’ s core market, while North American revenues rose 14 % to $ 1.9 billion.
SLB’ s $ 7.8 billion acquisition of Texas-based oil and gas technology company ChampionX Corp. helped push up North American revenues while offsetting declines in oil and gas activity on US land.
SLB CEO Olivier Le Peuch said he does not anticipate a significant recovery for North American drilling activity as operators continue to prioritize production maintenance amid market volatility.
“ Considering current industry dynamics and [ the ] commodity price environment, we believe the conditions are set— when the supply-demand rebalances— for the international markets to lead the future activity rebound,” Le Peuch said during in the company’ s earnings call.
email: autumn @ autumngiusti. com
22 Journal of Commerce | December 2025 www. joc. com