Infill Thinking Lifting the O&G knowledge curve

The drilling activity upcycle that began in 2016 started to take a breather in 4Q18. Now 2019 is shaping up to be the first down year in the past three years for rig count. In the 6-slide deck below, you’ll see the story of the current cycle in the context …

Here with the third quarter of 2019 only about a week old, we are pausing to take a look back at 10 key themes that threaded through our research over the past 3 months. 1. Infill Thinking’s Oilfield Water Coverage Reached Critical Mass. While continuing to devote plenty of research …

During 2Q19, the Infill Thinking research team: published 106 written research updates emailed 24 Infill Thoughts newsletters to active members issued 15 data releases to Think Sheets® members co-hosted the industry’s first Oilfield Water Finance conference and spoke at the SPE Permian Symposium, both in Houston conducted site visits and …

When Colorado’s SB-181 legislation passed in April 2019, it injected new uncertainties in the tenuous Colorado energy regulation climate. In our weekly rig count update this week, we discuss the fall-out and then shine the spotlight on the state’s rig count trends at the county level. There’s a lot more …

We analyze the latest electric frac fleet news, breaking down a new disclosure from a leading pressure pumper. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. If you are new to …

A data-driven look at trends in electric frac fleet deployments. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. If you are new to Infill Thinking, or your membership has expired, please …

In this update, we talk about why the withdrawal of the WaterBridge IPO isn’t a big surprise followed by takeaways from the afternoon sessions of the Oilfield Water Finance conference – an event that provides context and a framework for processing headlines like WaterBridge’s… The inaugural Oilfield Water Connection event …

We take you deep inside the 1s and 0s of another frac sand last mile software platform as our Silica Valley series rolls on. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a …

After learning about a new system’s arrival in the US from industry sources, we caught up with the management team behind the deployment. We have learned the following information about this new Lower 48 deployment: There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read …

An important E&P capex update this week reads negative for anyone hoping for an oilfield spending increase in 2020. Here’s the relevant excerpt followed by our analysis: There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you …

The power struggle for control of the 900,000 Permian acres controlled by Texas Pacific Land Trust has slowed down significantly since our last update three weeks ago. The newsflow decline was largely expected because of… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read …

In an update exactly one year ago titled For The Permian Rig Count, Flat Is The New Up. Calling The Temporary Top we wrote that the rig count had likely peaked in the Permian for the time being. We don’t always get ’em right around here, but this is one …

We believe that new gen supply of wellsite frac sand storage systems climbed above demand for the first time in late-4Q18. Long time readers may recall this deep dive analysis from September 2018 outlining the new gen growth trajectory and coming inflection. Here’s what’s new since then… There’s a lot …

Last Friday, the who’s who of oilfield water management gathered at the Oilfield Water Connection’s inaugural event at the Houston Petroleum Club. This executive event happened at a defining moment in oilfield wastewater management – for this sector is undergoing rapid, transactionally-driven change. From highly informative panel discussions to unrivaled …

“You might be surprised, but some of the most successful E&Ps to truly direct source final mile sand, trucking, and storage are the small to midsized E&Ps,” writes today’s guest author. Then he explains why as well as a big mistake he thinks some folks in the market are making …

WPX has talked about oilfield water assets strategy on investor conference calls times earlier this year. Their tone has progressively evolved in our view, and this week… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you …

During our recent field trip through the basin and many conversations with a variety of local market participants, we’ve managed to piece together some general market intel on the proppant market and supply chain conditions in this basin. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full …

During a drive through the Haynesville in early-June 2019, we passed by the construction site of a new frac sand plant just south of Shreveport, LA. Shortly after driving by, we talked with management to confirm some of our field observations and learn more about the project from this new …

We caught up with the management team of the only company operating two new construction local frac sand plants in the Haynesville shale for the latest scoop on their operations… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our …

We caught up with a sand producing management for an update on their Haynesville plant and the latest details on in-basin market trends. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. …

As expected and rumored in the industry, frac fleet consolidation has just begun and is likely to continue. Or is it? We discuss the implications of the Keane / C&J merger of equals announced Monday here after predicting that consolidation was coming in an update posted over this past weekend. …

With 2019 nearly halfway over, we thought it’d be a good time for a US oil production growth status check. And it doesn’t look good for the service industry, although there is a silver lining for rig owners that we see in the data… There’s a lot more to this …

On Thursday last week, Reuters reported that Patterson-UTI is exploring the divestiture of their pressure pumping business. After that, we heard from our own sources that… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must …

Most folks reading this update probably know that dealflow in the oilfield water sector is extremely hot in mid-2019. That said the magnitude of the transaction surge and cumulative deal flow described below may come as a bit of a surprise even to those that are plugged in on this …

Today’s guest post comes to us from Hunter Wallace who is Chief Operating Officer at Atlas Sand. Something we appreciate about Hunter is that he’s not shy to voice his beliefs with a high degree of conviction. Those of you that attended the Petroleum Connection’s frac sand conference last October …

We are keeping an eye on a new act that might have implications for future local frac sand capacity in Oklahoma’s SCOOP/STACK plays. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. …

While our recent work on rig count has detected signals from E&P operators that more rig releases are coming, this won’t be a 2H19 pivot but rather the continuation of a now well established trend. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read …

In this piece, we’ve put together a proprietary “voice of the industry” survey on electric frac fleets. We talked to contacts across the completions space about the pros, cons, adoption rates, and second order effects of utilizing electric frac fleets for this study. There’s a lot more to this story… …

In an after-hours newsletter one month ago, we warned Infill Thinking members that the buzz around electric frac fleets was poised to surge to new heights. That happened and then some! We take a look at the narrative that Wall Street has been pushing since the big dual e-fracing datapoints …

Earlier this week, we released a piece titled the The Oilfield Water Ownership Conundrum, which analyzed the business model strategies of 16 operators on their oilfield water management practices. Even as we write, there are multiple deal processes underway in the oilfield water space. One smart water contact plugged into …

Multiple last mile / wellsite storage system technologies working in the US today hail from Canadian heritage. This is an observation we’ve written about multiple times in the past (including in this analysis piece and this guest post piece). This week we came across a new Canadian systems that we …

Answer: HABOOB! And there was a huge one in the Midland Basin this week. Here’s around up of some of the best pictures posted by oilfield guys on social media this week… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and …

I don’t say this often, but this op-ed guest post is a must-read. It might be a wake up call for some folks. It’ll no doubt serve as confirmation for others. And while some of the piece is controversial, I suspect that more readers than not will be nodding their …

A Bloomberg news article last week cited our in-depth rig customer analysis shared to Infill Thinking members. So this week, we continue that discussion with an impromptu survey… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, …

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since we wrote the first “What Customers Say About Local Sand” piece! Anyone remember this little number? At the time of that writing, customers were starting to express their opinions on local sand for the very first time. Fast forward …

The oilfield water asset monetization trend is a more frequent topic in E&P conversations with investors these days, as analysts pepper management teams with questions about potential divestitutures in the wake of several notable recent water transactions. Here’s what some of the leaders are saying… There’s a lot more to …

In addition to the in-depth updates Infill Thinking published this week, we hunted down a variety of miscellaneous datapoints from around the sandpatch in our research process this week that are deserving of a quick mention. Let’s jump right in, shall we? Oh and it’s total coincidence that the titles …

In the struggle for control of Texas Pacific Land Trust, accusations are flying hot and heavy. The battle between the activist investor and incumbent trustees is not just playing out in the press any more. It’s going to court. Both sides have sued each other since our last update. Here’s …

Without further ado, here’s your customer-by-customer mid-year drilling program checkup… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. If you are new to Infill Thinking, or your membership has expired, please …

Last week, our team had a chance to spend a little time in the Marcellus/Utica. In addition to gathering some general observations about the market, we visited a Sahara wellsite storage system and spent some time talking with management. Here is what we learned about the system and management’s deployment …

Earlier this week, we published some notes from the road after spending time in the Marcellus/Utica frac supply chain last week. If you read that piece, you probably remember the section on the extremely busy Pilot Express fuel station near Steubenville, OH where we saw dozens of frac sand trucks …

The great local sand rush of 2017-2018 has clearly slowed down here as sand prices have dropped into a trough (we estimate Permian FOB mine prices are down some 65% y/y). What’s going on with operations though? Is more sand still to come? We take a look in this data-driven …

A contingent of the Infill Thinking team ventured into the heart of the Marcellus/Utica play last week to gather some boots on the ground intelligence. Here are some of the things we saw, heard and learned on our trip. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the …

Following our Appalachian oilfield trip last week, we are shining a spotlight on Marcellus / Utica drilling and completions trends in this edition of our regular weekly rig count.   There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our …

We screened the universe of large oilfield service customers looking for indications of elevated risk. For oilfield service firms and suppliers, it matters who you are doing business with. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research …

Shares of XYZ water company are ripping Friday morning after… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. If you are new to Infill Thinking, or your membership has expired, please …

We encountered a mini-doc on the Permian boom this week that is worth a watch if you haven’t seen it yet. Note the prayer before the left turn into 285 traffic at 5:30am… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update …

The great local sand rush of 2017-2018 has clearly slowed down here as sand prices have dropped into a trough (we estimate Permian FOB mine prices are down some 65% y/y). What’s going on with operations though? Is more sand still to come? We take a look in this data-driven …

In this update, we chart an important activity metric that probably peaked in the Permian in-basin sand industry during 1Q19. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a member. If you are …

Whelp… this chart doesn’t bode well for oilfield service markets in 4Q19… Are we on track for a repeat of last year’s budget exhaustion woes? There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be …