Last week after scouring air permit data, we identified a new sand mine site in Culberson County Texas In conversations with readers offline, the potential mine’s location has come up several times as a sticking point. Could this sand be stranded if indeed it is pointed at the frac industry? (questions …
Read More »Why Permian Sand Mines Will Work. And Why They Won’t Work Too…
The impact of in-basin sand on the US supply stack is not only the key debate in the silica industry today. It is the single most important debate in the entire US oilfield at present. Today, three-fourths of US frac sand is sourced north of the Mason-Dixon line, but there are …
Read More »The Unfair Recovery Shows Up At OTC, Doesn’t Buy A Ticket [2 Charts]
This week, Offshore Technology Conference attendance fell for a third straight year. Higher oil prices and the US onshore recovery didn’t buoy turnout. That said, attendance might have slipped more without the draw of US onshore technology exhibits at the event. We’ve got stats charts and anecdotes from the conference in this …
Read More »The Hottest Tickets At The Biggest Oilfield Store Can Teach Us A Thing Or Two [Tool List]
As usual, NOV’s earnings call last week provided detailed color on the oilfield supply chain. CEO Clay Williams always does a good job of taking listeners inside his manufacturing shops around the oil patch. If there is iron in the oilfield, there’s a good chance at least some part of …
Read More »Some Big Names Are Behind Permian Frac Sand Mines 3 & 4. Exclusive Details Here As The In-Basin Rush Heats Up
Infill Thinking members are already up to speed on the first two frac sand mine facilities planned in the Permian Basin (Hi-Crush’s Kermit site and Black Mountain’s first Winkler County mine). Although other specific sites have yet to be announced, it’s no surprise they are in the works. Today, we identified two more …
Read More »Could “Stealth Scrapping” Balance The Deepwater Rig Market Sooner Than Public Retirements Suggest?
If deepwater rig demand were to begin its ascent today, it would be met with a glut of rigs that would render the impact on dayrates, and indeed contractor bottom lines, relatively impotent. If more rigs aren’t removed from the structural oversupply before demand moves higher, drilling contractors are at risk …
Read More »Here’s The First Look At The Permian Basin’s Original Frac Sand Mine [Progress Pic]
A quick update here (including our first visual) on the new Permian Basin frac sand mine that started it all. On Monday evening the new facility’s owner provided an update on the new mine’s construction progress. As part of that, the company shared the very first peek at what they’ve been building …
Read More »Oilfield Technologification Starts With A Spud. How & Why Land Drillers Have Gone All Apple On Us
Most industry observers now accept that the oilfield is on a path towards digitization, big data, machine learning, more integration, and automation. Instinctually, most of these same observers would probably not pick land contract drilling as a segment to lead the charge. But it has become increasingly clear to us that …
Read More »Big Name Hedge Fund Shorts Sand Stocks Thanks Largely To Permian Dunes
Can lower quality, logistically advantage frac sand deposits take on and potentially displace Northern White supply railed into the hottest completions markets? This question has quickly rocketed up the controversy leader-board, becoming one of the most hotly contested debates in the entire upstream industry today. As the first industry publication …
Read More »Weatherford Finally Focuses On Process Over Outcome
A portfolio manager I worked for in a prior life always said “focus on process not outcome.” It’s a helpful way of approaching problem solving and decision making by shutting out the distraction of daily progress toward goal. At the end of the day, outcome is all that really matters to stakeholders …
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Infill Thinking Lifting the O&G knowledge curve