Infill Thinking Lifting the O&G knowledge curve

As May turns into June, Atlas Sand’s twin frac sand plant construction projects in the Permian should be moving up everyone’s list of completions infrastructure worth monitoring. For more background check out this deep dive we penned after visiting one of their construction projects in 1Q18. There’s a lot more …

We curate new information in the public record on the newest vertically integrated frac sand project. 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, …

Last week, we brought you news of a third facility Black Mountain is building in its core market, the Permian Basin. As expected, the permit was filed on Friday and we’ve learned a bit more about the new plant from that… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to …

In terms of the current unconventional drilling rig count, this formula works to within a rounding error. Although it’s probably not a huge surprise to most Infill Thinkers, it’s still some mind-blowing arithmetic: There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update …

Infill Thinking comes at you fast. In 2018, we are on track to publish more than 400 original research updates. These proprietary updates often break the seal on topics that will be covered elsewhere months later (i.e. Permian frac sand truckload estimates). While timely, Infill Thinking updates also contain proprietary …

Want to make a big splash at the next industry conference? How about announce that you are doubling the size of your company’s operations and tripling the basins you work in? That’s effectively what Black Mountain Sand did at the Permian conference in Fort Worth yesterday. As the dust settles …

In April 2018, Infill Thinking’s research team had an opportunity to visit the new Emerge Energy Services plant in San Antonio and meet one-on-one with management to learn about operations there. Then in early-May, the company hosted their 1Q18 conference call. Blending what we learned from these two sources results …

This is a developing story, check back for updates… 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 email …

The Permian is the epicenter of the in-basin frac sand trend. Local sand sourcing is a trend that will be on display in full force in Ft Worth this week as upstream executives gather to talk all things Permian. But the magnitude of the trend’s reach into other geo-markets is …

Many of our subscribers have descended upon Fort Worth this week for the large Permian Basin executive confab going on there. We’ve prepared the following “cheat sheet” of talking points in advance of the event. We tried to go a layer deeper than the agenda in this exercise, focusing on …

In this week’s rig count update we take a look at who is drilling wells in the US with a market share pie chart and the trend over time. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research …

2018 is the year of the zipper frac. Reducing completion cycle times is a key overriding theme in shale. Zipper frac are expanding both in use and definition. Check out how this trend is impacting completion programs in this update. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see …

Following up on our plant-by-plant review of Permian Basin frac sand production last week, we’ve also updated our estimates for the play’s frac sand demand broken down by supply source. In this update, you’ll see the chart and a bullet point list of our latest thoughts as we look at …

If you came for Mark’s quote, it’s further down along with other recent operator remarks on frac hits and parent-child well production impacts. First, a brief word on the industry’s general tone on parent-child wells and what it means for oilfield service companies after digesting a large batch of recent …

There is a new discussion topic over in our members-only Thinking Aloud forum. In it we discuss the importance of branding, marketing, and the mind share battle in oilfield services. In frac sand and logistics, this has been an afterthought in the past. But now a confluence of new factors …

Six weeks ago, we assessed Permian in-basin frac sand production at an annualized rate of 15mmtpa coming from 7 operational facilities. This week, we updated our assessment, finding that local sand production has increased significantly in the past six weeks. In fact, daily local proppant availability is up X%, with the …

Each week we cover a topical US weekly drilling trend, and provide in-depth analysis of the rig count and frac spread count. Here is this week’s installment… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you …

After the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard (DSL) petition was filed earlier this week, we had a chance to catch up with a subject matter expert on Texas environmental issues to learn a bit more about what matters in the petition and what to watch for next… There’s a lot more to this …

Live takeaways from Select’s 1Q18 earnings call… 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 email us to …

With the Midland crude basis differential widening to as much as $15/bbl, we’ve received inbound questions from quite a few supply chain subscribers (and Bloomberg News too) asking about the impact on oilfield service activity and logistics. Here is an executive summary of the Permian producers’ view, our view, and …

Unbundling is trending in the US completions supply chain. So… a key question we’ve been asked by investors in the space recently is what might compel E&P buyers to rebundle their frac supply chains? In other words, can Big OFS put the genie back in the bottle now that it’s …

It’s official. We discuss… this is a developing story and we’ll be adding updates to this post as we learn more today. 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 …

At Infill Thinking, we are honored by a recent invitation to participate in this week’s Industrial Minerals Association North America Spring 2018 meeting. On Wednesday May 9, Infill Thinking Founder and Principal Research Analyst Joseph Triepke will speak about big picture frac sand market trends as a participant on the …

Get the latest on Preferred Sands’ multi-barrel approach to adding frac sand capacity in the big oil 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. If you are new to …

This is the latest edition of our regular weekly rig count update filled with charts and analysis on North America onshore drilling 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. …

Admittedly, predicting the timing of the DSL listing petition has proven difficult. That said, we suggest readers revisit this in-depth guide over the weekend to be braced for come what may…   There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and …

Several weeks ago, Infill Thinking’s research team had an opportunity to visit the Twin Eagle Mission Park transload terminal near Elmendorf, Texas. In this post, check out our drone photos and key takeaways on Twin Eagle operations and their latest developments including an important strategic shift. There’s a lot more …

We’ve uncovered another newbuild frac sand mine project in the Mid-Con, which is now the focus of an intense land-grab similar to what played out in the Permian and Eagle Ford over the past 12-18 months, but admittedly on a smaller scale. There’s a lot more to this story… Login …

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, three large frac sand companies hosted 1Q18 conference calls. Because most Infill Thinkers are too busy to study everything said, we are boiling down each call into a handful of key points that really matter. Here are the Hi-Crush bullet points, stay tuned for Emerge Energy …

Infill Thinking subscribers knew about the news that Fairmount announced today several weeks ago thanks to an Infill Thinking open records request and a little elbow grease we put into connecting some dots in the public record. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  …

In “things that crossed our desk but didn’t qualify for a stand-alone update” over the past couple of days, we offer the following four datapoints of interest, intrigue, and impact: There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our …

We live-blogged the FTS International conference call this morning, listening for oilfield marketplace implications (not so much financials or FTSI idiosyncratic issues). 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 …

Several weeks ago, Infill Thinking’s research team had an opportunity to visit the Vista Proppants and Logistics transload terminal near Dilley, Texas. Here are our key takeaways from our firsthand look at this facility. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this …

The customer is always right, and here is what they are saying about the frac sand they are buying. 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 …

Last week, three large land drilling contractors hosted quarterly conference calls. Their pricing commentary was an echo chamber of positivity, which is not terribly surprising with $68 WTI and the US onshore rig count moving up in 12 out of the 17 weeks so far this year. There’s a lot …

This is the third installment in our Silica Valley Series which shines the spotlight on an increasingly critical part of the frac value chain: new software solutions in the last mile. A crop of new entrants are improving the frac sand industry’s “mind-muscle connection” on the highways from origin to …

In this data-intensive report in our Out Think series, we take an in-depth look at the growing trend of direct sourcing and frac supply chain unbundling. In This Report You Will See: Why More Operators Are Moving To Self-Sourcing A List Of Which Operators Are Self-Sourcing How Much Sand They …

  So how many trucks will West Texas frac sand require in the last mile? We have estimates… 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 live blogged our takeaways from the US Silica earnings conference call on Tuesday 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, …

No EPS or EBITDA or financial speak to give you tired-head. Just the market intel that really matters curated from Halliburton’s earnings conference call on Monday April 23. Oh and also the fireworks… lots of fireworks. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To …

Last Wednesday, Hayden Gillespie (Chief Commercial Officer of Black Mountain Sand) and Bud Brigham (Chairman of Atlas Sand) testified in front of the Texas House Of Representatives Energy Committee. If you missed their testimony, no worries took it in and recapped the highlights here. Some interesting market intel and perspective on …

On the heels of some market commentary provided by Schlumberger this week and some interesting headlines from around the globe, we examine the outlook for international drilling activity and dissect the international rig count. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this …

PropX is growing and they are growing fast. In this update, read exclusive details we learned in a recent meeting with management about the company’s build cadence, trends in box per crew, business model, adoption rates, and the impacts of steel tariffs and OSHA regs. There’s a lot more to …

Oilfield earnings season kicked off Friday morning as Schlumberger discussed the outlook. No EPS here, just the important market points Big Blue made about business conditions in North America. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and receive our research …

Yesterday’s wildfire news caused us to revisit publicly available mine permit records for the Mid-Con. We have uncovered an additional large-scale sand mining plan in Oklahoma as the Mid-Con proppant market appears to be quickly moving in the direction of the Permian – becoming locally supplied. There’s a lot more …

A Monahans train wreck overnight on Wednesday could impact Permian completions. 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, …

Thoughts on the developing wildfire situation in the Mid-Con as it pertains to upstream activity. This is a fluid situation, and we’ll be adding updates to this post as events unfold.   There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update and …

Everyone’s been focused on trucking in Texas. And trucking in Texas is tight. But it’s the devil you don’t know that’ll get you.  And during the first half of 2018, unanticipated disruptions in transportation modes not involving wheels have wreaked much more havoc in the shale frac sand transportation network. …

Following this recent update on more local proppant capacity in the Haynesville shale, we received some inbound reader questions about the status of the Haynesville shale market. Incoming intel requests spanned both the frac sand market and general drilling and completion activity in the region. So we made some calls …

This month in South Texas, we spent the better part of a week meeting with industry contacts, touring facilities, and combing the field for interesting angles. In this update, we’ve distilled our yellow pad full of random notes into the following digestible bullet points. Please stay tuned for several more …