Quick Thoughts

Nabors released an operational update Monday morning, disclosing how the rapid US rig count growth trajectory during the first quarter is impacting their business. Like Halliburton, Nabors is incurring unexpected costs associated with the outsized growth relative to prior expectations. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see …

Halliburton took an unusual step on Friday morning, hosting a conference call before the quarter ended to provide an operational update. On the call, Big Red put all other US pumpers on notice: the US is their turf and they won’t give it up easy. The company has executed a strategic pivot from …

As Upstreamonline first reported and we discussed last week, Norwegian startup Borr Drilling has been sniffing around Transocean’s jackup fleet. On Monday, Borr Drilling put out a press release confirming the reports. The company says it has signed an LOI with Transocean for the purchase of 15 jackups. Transocean has not released …

This morning, the Norwegian Financial daily Finansavisen reported in no uncertain terms that Aker Group, owned by Kjell Inge Røkke, is about to sell Aker Solutions to Halliburton. We have detailed analysis of the possibility including a cliff hanger question you don’t want to miss… There’s a lot more to this story… Login …

Looking around at the headlines this morning, everyone’s talking about oil prices “plunging” or “slumping” below $50 (example). Whether oil is $49 or $51 doesn’t make that much of a difference for industry participants themselves – be they oil service firms or E&Ps they serve. To be sure, there may be …

In an unexpected announcement Monday evening, Weatherford welcomed of Mark McCollum, Halliburton’s CFO, as its new permanent CEO and director. For Weatherford, choosing between interim CEO Krishna Shivram and McCollum was a win/win. Shivram impressed everyone during his stint at the helm, but McCollum is the stronger candidate. So when the board realized …

On Wednesday afternoon, Weatherford announced that a new alliance has been formed with Nabors Industries to integrate drilling rigs and services in the US land market. This new service model is something Schlumberger has been talking about and working on for several years now. In this update, we offer our take …

The shale industry kicked off the new year with a continuation of the great migration to the Permian Basin. This morning SM Energy announced the sale of its third party operated assets in the Eagle Ford, including its ownership interest in related midstream assets, for $800 million. In this update we …

Land drilling / pressure pumping hybrids Patterson-UTI and Seventy Seven Energy have agreed to join forces as 2016 draws to a close. Patterson-UTI will purchase Seventy Seven Energy for $1.76bn in an all-stock deal that includes the assumption and repayment of $336mm of net debt. This deal isn’t a bargain, as …

BJ Services returned to the scene as a standalone company late Tuesday as Baker Hughes announced the pressure pumping divestiture they talked about before the GE deal and confirmed during the GE announcement. We break down the deal including observations about value, Goldman Sach’s interesting history with BJ Services, and some …