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 …

With 27 oilfield earnings reports this week, including a dozen conference calls on Thursday alone, C-suites across the patch opened the information flood gates. We continue to pore over transcripts and 10-Qs. For this update, we are driving right on past the usual suspects. Laterals are getting longer, sand’s expensive and …

On ExxonMobil’s conference call Friday, we will be listening for talking points on two key development areas in particular: the Permian Basin and the deepwater Liza development offshore Guyana. The Liza development is especially important as it is one of the first major deepwater projects that is moving forward since the …

This week, we put the oil market’s biggest open question to oil traders on Twitter. What will OPEC do in exactly one month when the group meets to decide whether to extend the production quotas implemented in November 2016? We polled the most influential oil trading group on Twitter (#OOTT) on …

US Silica hosted a positive call to kick off 1Q17 earnings season for the frac sand industry this morning. The outlook provided was bullish for both demand and pricing. The company’s commentary on the emerging Permian local sands market both validated our own thesis and introduced cautionary notes into the …

So far in the upcycle, the well cost inflation discussion has largely focused on hydraulic fracturing pricing (both HHP / stage pricing and consumables). Rightly so, as leading edge price per stage has essentially doubled year-over-year. Prices for surface casing and tubing (collectively OCTG) are rising cyclically as well and the market is …

With all the talk of local sands in recent weeks, we thought it’d be worthwhile to map rigs vs. mines. Shown on our map in this update is the dispersion of the US horizontal rig count plotted against the percentage of US frac sand capacity arising from a half dozen …

If you ever want to nerd-out, visit Core Lab’s Houston facility. After a tour, you’ll understand why “lab” is part of their name. This is the highest-IQ company in oilfield service. They are also closer to operators’ rock than any other service firm. Core Lab is not a pressure pumping …

With Schlumberger’s earnings call this morning, oilfield earnings season is officially underway. CEO Paal Kibsgaard addressed several of the themes we expect to dominate the conversation this earnings season including US price increases and activity strength and maybe over-exuberance, sluggish international conditions, aggressive frac reactivation, new business models in offshore drilling, …

After announcing the acquisition of a San Antonio sand mine on Monday, Emerge Energy Services hosted a conference call on Wednesday to discuss the deal and future plans for the site. If you need to get up to speed on the transaction and our initial take, please refer to this …