Infill Thoughts

The oilfield service IPO surge this year has been met with a hostile energy tape. Over the past week, two oilfield service IPOs attempted to cross the finish line: Liberty Oilfield Services and Solaris Oilfield Infrastructure. Both were met with pushback. But Solaris got done and Liberty didn’t. Here’s why and what it …

Smart Sand Inc., the newly public Northern White producer (February IPO), announced another Oakdale plant expansion on Thursday. This is the second expansion announced already this year and the latest example of the kind of brownfield expansion that is conspiring with regional sands to make operators happy and sand investors nervous. …

We have uncovered two more future frac sand mines in the heart of the Permian. These sites take our “confirmed planned site” count up to 6 in the area – a figure that could easily be 10 by the end of May. Although the market is aware that Permian sand mines …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …