This past weekend, we read a half dozen transcripts of earnings calls from the oil majors and national oil companies (NOCs). The big guys are all whistling the same tune. They are successfully re-engineering pending deepwater projects to fit $50 oil (and below). They are ready to clear their final investment decision …

ConocoPhillips is baffled by recent dayrate hikes by the US land drillers. And they aren’t the only operators that feel this way  we take a look at what ConocoPhillips’ CEO had to say about it and explore why the operators shouldn’t feel too bad about a few grand a day …

Next Monday at the Petroleum Club in Houston, the who’s who of the frac sand business will come together for the 2nd Annual Frac Sand Industry Update Conference. In a sign of the times, the event was oversubscribed so the venue has been expanded. By way of disclosure, we do not …

In Vail Colorado last week, Credit Suisse hosted most of the publicly traded upstream industry for the firm’s annual energy summit. Between runs down the slopes, oilfield C-suites talked 2017 prospects with their investors. While service companies were in the next room over talking excitedly about raising prices, E&P management teams …

A few weeks ago, we penned an update titled: “Unintended Consequences – The Crude Price Risk Factor No One Is Talking About… Yet.” Today, we bring you two new datapoints in that narrative. As a reminder, the risk thesis begins with a pending structural transformation in an end market for the heavier …

Our last mile deep dive published earlier this week resulted in the best 24-hour period for signups during Infill Thinking’s short five-month history. We share this not to brag. Instead, we see this as confirmation that the metamorphosis in frac sand’s last mile is indeed transformative with broad implications for the industry …

Late-last year, we introduced our Shale Executive Sentiment Index to try and gauge how management teams from drilling to service to E&P were thinking about growth in 2017. We were able to measure sentiment by quantifying the frequency of references to growth as shale executives spoke to investors. At the time …

Retail giant Amazon and the hydraulic fracturing business have something in common: costly and complex last mile logistics. Distributing proppant requires just as much sophistication as distributing Echo Dots, Yeti Tumblers, and Kleenex. In 2017, more truckloads of sand per well will be pumped than ever before. The frac industry is trying …

Retail giant Amazon and the hydraulic fracturing business have something in common: costly and complex last mile logistics. Distributing proppant requires just as much sophistication as distributing Echo Dots, Yeti Tumblers, and Kleenex. In 2017, more truckloads of sand per well will be pumped than ever before. The frac industry is trying …

Pressure pumping is heating up fast. After reactivating two frac spreads since mid-December, Patterson-UTI revealed yesterday that it will reactivate a third in 2Q17. After it closes on the Seventy-Seven acquisition, we estimate Patterson-UTI will be the fifth largest pressure pumper in the US. That means they get calls from …