Arindam Bhattacharya has been serving as managing director for Schlumberger New Energy Venture, a corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of US-based oil services provider, since August 2020 where he identifies energy transition opportunities for the parent firm.
Previously, he had spent more than 25 years at the parent firm in various roles, having most recently been corporate vice-president (VP) of strategy, marketing and technology, reservoir and infrastructure group, for nearly a year.
Based in Houston in the US state of Texas, Bhattacharya is in charge of new venture capital investments for the Schlumberger New Energy business group, by combining innovative business ventures and strategic early-stage technology investments in the space, leveraging the CVC platform.
The Schlumberger New Energy venture unit partners and invests in early-stage developers of areas including clean hydrogen production, sustainable lithium extraction, carbon capture and sequestration, geothermal power generation and geo-energy for build environments. The unit manages a portfolio of more than 20 companies.
Bhattacharya serves on the boards of engineering applications robotics systems developer Houston Mechatronics, nanocrystalline cellulose producer CelluForce, shippable metallurgical system developer Molyworks and downhole gas-tight seal creator BISN.
Greenhouse gas emissions monitor GHGSat, workplace robotics technology provider Sarcos Robotics and memory storage developer Nantero are also among the unit’s portfolio companies.
Schlumberger New Energy explores new growth possibilities by using Schlumberger’s intellectual and business capital in emerging new energy markets, concentrating on low-carbon and carbon-neutral energy technologies. Its activities include ventures in the domains of hydrogen, lithium, carbon capture and sequestration, geothermal power and geo-energy for heating and cooling buildings.
Bhattacharya began his career in Schlumberger as a wireline field engineer before leading global and diverse teams in challenging environments. In the past decade, he had been in several senior corporate leadership roles in Schlumberger including group president of land drilling rigs product line, president of Mexico and Central America area, VP and general manager for Venezuela and the Caribbean market, VP for integrated project management in South America.
Bhattacharya strives to disrupt the energy industry through innovative technologies. Particular topics of strategic impact and interest over the past few years include digital transformation of the oil and gas business and technology and business disruption in the energy transition space.
He holds a master of science in petroleum engineering and project management from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
