In the first months of the downturn, we began warning that a workforce designed for $100 oil is not the same one needed at $50 oil. However, the oilfield service industry right sized extremely quickly to lower activity levels over the past two years. We’ll soon see just how surgical these cuts …

Nothing can go up and to the right forever, especially not the rig count. The US onshore rig count fell back by six units this week. This break is actually a good thing and we explain why and break down the weekly rig count in in this post. There’s a …

WPX Energy joined in the Permian deal making fray, announcing a $775mm Delaware Basin acquisition late Thursday. 2017 operating plan announcements from Permian Independents aren’t the standard fare this year. We are used beginning of year E&P operating plans stating capex, production, and drilling program summaries. This year they are …

In a related update published last week, we described how the brute force enterprise of nano-darcy E&P is becoming more elegant. Elegance is achieved as sub-surface understanding moves closer to a realistic picture of the reservoir. Enhancing sub-surface understanding is where leading innovators in shale are focused today. They are …

News from Parsley Energy and SM Energy on Tuesday continued the Great Permian Migration trend this week. We break down the news into the most important incremental bullet points and provide a few words on the bigger picture trend in the Permian. By the way, if you are looking to …

Last week we published a list of four companies we expect to make oil service acquisitions during 2017. Apparently grass isn’t growing under our buyers feet – less than a week after our preview, one of them has already made a purchase. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see …

On February 2, Weatherford’s new CEO Krishna Shivram will talk to investors for the first time as the boss of the company. He’s got some work to do. The market will be looking for a restoration of confidence. That means Krishna needs to have a story for the new Weatherford …

Another week of US onshore rig count gains is in the books. But before we quantify that in our weekly statistical update (see full update below), the other side of the equation deserves a few words. Everyone is focused on rising rig counts today. Tomorrow they’ll be focused on dayrates. And …

We don’t normally republish articles from third party sources in full. But an in depth survey on the state of the Permian released at the end of last year is making the rounds this week. And if you haven’t seen it yet, it is definitely worth taking a look. Runaway …

In E&P, most analysts expect M&A action to be hot and heavy during the first half of 2017. There is less consensus about a wave of M&A coming in oilfield service (OFS), partly because of challenging valuations. So we put pen to paper this week and came up with the …