Infill Thinking Lifting the O&G knowledge curve

In South Texas last week, we drove out to 13 local mines and 1 rail terminal. We went behind the gate with management teams for discussion and site visits at about half those locations. It was a busy couple days! Starting today, you’ll find the market intelligence we’ve gathered shared …

On the heels of yet another combination of public E&P operators this morning (PDC Energy and SRC Energy), we spent some time thinking about the expansion, peak and contraction of the public E&P universe. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this …

Analysis of the deep cuts in drilling activity across multiple basins last  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 must be a member. If you are new to Infill Thinking, or your membership …

There were three notable transactions in oilfield water management this week. In two of them, a new buzzword emerged that we like and think could stick as the roll-up of legacy E&P oilfield water systems by third-party water midstream firms continues… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to …

We welcomed about 40 Infill Thinking subscribers for coffee, knowledge sharing, and networking on Wednesday in Fort Worth. This was the 16th reader appreciation event we’ve hosted in the past 2.5 years. Thanks to our highly engaged members, these events keep getting bigger and better. We also met with various …

The Delaware Basin is the epicenter of the oilfield water revolution for several reasons including its concentration of unconventional activity and high water cuts relative to other plays in Texas and the Lower 48. As a result… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  …

The rate of positive growth in Permian drilling activity began to slow down in mid-2017. It stagnated in 2018. And it has faded into contraction in 2019. Over this period, the relationship between… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update …

We provide an update on a northern Delaware Basin water behemoth, which was created through M&A this May. 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 …

We may be wrapping up our Utah frac sand spotlight series today, but our coverage of this emerging local sand market doesn’t end here. We’ll be reporting on the local sand story in Utah as first shipments begin later this year, reporting on adoption trends, competitive dynamics, quality, surety of …

Calling all DFW-area Infill Thinking members: we’d like to buy you a mid-morning coffee, shake your hand and chat oilfield trends with you. We look forward to networking with Infill Thinking members over coffee in Downtown Fort Worth in mid-August (this event is included with your membership). There’s a lot …

As we write, a brand new wellsite storage system is on the road making its journey towards a West Texas where it will attract quite a few spectators over the next few weeks. It’s arrival in the Basin tomorrow will mark the first time this system has entered the Texas …

After updating our company-by-company E&P capex model this week, we’ve concluded 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 be a member. If you are new to Infill Thinking, or your membership has …

Back in the heyday of the Permian local frac sand boom (2017), Infill Thinking was breaking news about an incremental Permian frac sand plant once a week it seemed. With the Permian now oversupplied, all’s been quiet on the greenfield construction front for the past year. Here lately, we’ve been …

One day, we’ll all be able to tell our grandkids “I was there when contractors couldn’t put rigs back to work for free.” US onshore operators have lost their appetite for growth so much so that… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To …

In an exclusive series of updates over the past couple of weeks, we have been analyzing frac sand market conditions in the often overlooked Utah completions market where big changes are happening in the supply stack. In this third installment of the series, we shine a spotlight on one new …

After about the sixth management team this earnings season said “we are focused on what we can control” we decided to spend a little time thinking about… 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 latest operator commentary on frac sand continues to underscore local sand adoption and cost savings – themes that have been consistent on E&P calls since early-last year. However, this may be one of the final earnings seasons where we see… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to …

The universe of publicly traded shale oilfield water companies is small (for now). But the universe of companies with material oilfield water handling exposure is… 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 …

17 photographs of physical operations appear in the new Hi-Crush slide deck released alongside their earnings report on Tuesday evening. 10 of these images depict… 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 …

In a research update last week, we shared exclusive details on the local frac sand production scene in the state of Utah. In the second installment of our three-part series on local sand in the Uinta Basin, we discuss proppant demand and logistics in this unique completions market. There’s a …

Nabors recently released the 2Q results from its quarterly customer survey. In this update we examine how their results compared with several operator surveys and studies we conducted in May and July… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and …

We’ve seen plenty of E&P divestitures of water midstream assets to third-party water pure-plays over the past 12 months. But oilfield service firms can also benefit from… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you …

We highlight the most important sustainability developments disclosed by operators, including several “firsts” for the industry. For many years, EOG has been the industry leader in completion design, technology and reservoir exploitation. Now they are leading the charge on a new front for operators as well: “going green….” There’s a …

There is already a veritable flood of pressure pumper and operator earnings coverage making the rounds from other analysts and publishers this week. So we focused here on sharing 11 bite-sized pieces of market intel (including a mix of datapoints and our own thoughts on the market) that are a …

At this publication, we tend to steer clear of “stock talk.” As regular readers know, our focus instead is getting deep into the weeds on corporate strategy, industry trends and the people that drive this industry forward. Furthermore, our staff does not personally invest in or trade individual stocks in …

The larger two deals of the three involve E&P operators handing off a portion of their water management operations to third-party midstream companies. This is a critically important sub-theme in water M&A, which we’ve addressed in many updates this year. Check out more analysis of each deal in this update, …

In our regular weekly rig count update, we highlight some recent commentary from two leading land drillers on market trends in the Lower 48 rig market. This commentary confirms two recent Infill Thinking exclusive reports… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read …

Boxes vs. pneumatics? It’s a long standing argument. Even without that competitive dynamic, it’s been tough in the sand hauling business with rates under pressure for the past 12-24 months. Here’s the latest datapoint we’ve picked up with implications for the frac sand hauling market… There’s a lot more to …

US Silica press released strong 2Q19 results this morning. We highlight 5 items from the press release that caught our attention. We also share what we’ll be listening for on this morning’s call and will add conference call analysis to this update later today… There’s a lot more to this …

Utah local sand is coming.  It’s coming faster than some folks might think. So we applied our kind of mining to the situation: data mining, public records mining, and interviewing regional contacts to learn more about the situation. Here’s what we know at this point in part one of an …

Boiling down everything that’s crossed our desk this week to just the following 12 items of import wasn’t easy. After the typical summer lull in news flow, it feels like folks are getting back to work in the oilfield business. School is about to start, folks are returning from summer …

Some savvy Infill Thinking members requested that we provide our Summer Survey results limited to only include E&P operator responses. It’s a good idea, and one that triggered our own intellectual curiosity. So we crunched the numbers and in the charts below, you will see……. There’s a lot more to …

We recently surveyed the Infill Thinking membership on the outlook for 2H19 and 2020. Our 20 survey questions addressed big picture upstream themes, frac sand, and completions trends. We’d like to extend a big thank you to the many participants who weighed in from across the upstream value chain – …

3 wrinkles in Halliburton’s earnings call commentary yesterday went underappreciated in the myriad of conference call coverage available elsewhere… Here’s three notable nuances that caught our attention. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you …

US land drilling has slide downward all year. While that’s likely no surprise to readers of this publication, it may be a bit surprising to some to see the unyielding slide shown in this zoomed-in look at the 2019 weekly progression in drilling activity. There’s a lot more to this story… …

It was a busy Monday for e-frac news, as a flurry of datapoints advancing the narrative in this new trend caught our eye. And it’s possible that buried in this flurry of news is… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this …

An important E&P capex update this week reads distinctly negative for anyone hoping for an oilfield spending increase in 2020. Here’s the relevant excerpt: 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 …

Earlier this year, Infill Thinking predicted that the Permian frac sand workforce would peak during 2Q19. Analysis of 2Q19 actual workforce trends confirms the prediction has panned out. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, …

What matters most to Infill Thinking readers is what Schlumberger is doing in the US onshore market and what their view of Lower 48 OFS market conditions is at this juncture. So that’s the focus of the following five points, which we believe are the most important things Schlumberger said …

Here’s what completions supply chain folks need to know about Union Pacific’s market commentary Thursday morning… 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, …

The “Summer Of Restructuring” continues in frac sand. This week, we identified a third Chapter 11 filing in the space… 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 …

Towards the end of the press release on Callon’s acquisition of Carrizo this week, a comment on oilfield water caught our eye. It signals… 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 …

With 2Q19 in the books, here’s how horizontal drilling trends stacked up during the quarter across the major unconventional basins. Overall the US unconventional rig count was down X% during 2Q19… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive …

Shale Support filed Chapter 11 last Thursday. In our coverage at the time, we noted they would not be alone in the bankruptcy camp for very long. We admittedly didn’t know they’d have company quite this fast though… Yesterday in bankruptcy court… There’s a lot more to this story… Login …

At Infill Thinking, we are very aware of what our greatest asset is. Without a doubt it is our membership roster. We are honored to have on this list some of the most accomplished executives in the US onshore business. We are also very aware of what the key debates …

Driving stage counts per day higher has been the name of the game in completions over the past several years. In this deep dive piece late-last year, we explored the frac efficiency trend in detail, documenting the success operators and pumpers were achieving. Versus 2016 frac cycle times, some operators …

Restructuring continues in the frac sand industry, claiming another sand producer this week. Per the bankruptcy filing, the company owes total debts of… Details in the full report. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, …

We estimate fracing the arid Permian Basin in 2019 requires X times as much pre-frac water as the next busiest US unconventional basin. Here’s a visual and analysis… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, …

About a month ago, we published an update on a mining permit moratorium in Oklahoma. After a bullet-point recap, we discuss the nuances with an expert, talk about the read-through to other states including New Mexico and Louisiana, and then provide some clarification on a new permit filed by an …

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 …