About this ebook
The author, whose father Conrad Schlumberger and uncle Marcel Schlumberger invented “electrical prospecting” and founded what became Schlumberger Ltd., now a worldwide leader in oilfield services, describes the travails of the early days of the company.
What began in the basement of the Ecole des Mines in Paris with a “black box” (the potentiometer), was further developed at the family home of Val-Richer, and perfected at Péchelbronn, France’s only oil field where “coring” (logging) was born, eventually became known to the entire world. Anne Gruner Schlumberger tells what that journey was like for her father and uncle and other geological researchers and engineers whose resourcefulness and perseverance were tested in remote areas of the world where they toiled under harsh conditions to convince skeptics of the validity of their new exploration methods.
The little enterprise the two brothers started in 1919 has become in 1982 when The Schlumberger Adventure first appeared a multinational corporation employing 85,000 people in some 78 countries and listed on the stock exchanges of New York, Paris, London and Amsterdam.
About the author
Anne Gruner Schlumberger (1905-1993), a French philanthropist and patron of the arts and science, was the daughter of Conrad Schlumberger, who with his brother Marcel Schlumberger, founded the oil exploration company Schlumberger Ltd. Conrad and Marcel’s father, Paul Schlumberger, was an Alsatian textile manufacturer.
Anne Gruner Schlumberger’s first husband, Henri George Doll, joined Conrad and Marcel in 1926 and became a leader in the development of oil well logging and a key technical executive of Schlumberger Ltd. Her sisters, Dominique de Ménil and Sylvie Boissonnas, were also married to Schlumberger Ltd. executives.
Anne Gruner Schlumberger supported the arts, literature and science through many sponsorship activities, encouraging creativity in all its forms. She established theFondation des Treilles and set up the very first children’s only library near Paris in 1965 before establishing over twenty libraries in rural areas of Greece.
