Infill Thinking Lifting the O&G knowledge curve

Alongside Emerge Energy Services’ Eagle Ford sand mine announcement on Monday, the company also gave us the first peek at actual 1Q17 sand demand. There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a subscriber. If your free trial has expired, …

Back in early-March, we wrote to subscribers that a frac sand miner was evaluating a deposit outside San Antonio to serve the Eagle Ford (see point 1 here), something we picked up on the sidelines of the industry’s leading conference. This morning, Emerge Energy Services announced they’ve closed an Eagle Ford …

It won’t come as a surprise to most of our readers that a slew of O&G IPOs are coming to market. Instead of rubbing our hands together with excitement, perhaps we should be wringing them in worry. We are now monitoring about 20 US onshore oilfield IPO deals collectively sized at …

Infill Thinking’s subscriber base increased seven-fold during the first three months of 2017. If you are reading this, you have some fast growing company! You also have some high-IQ company. Our trusted research updates are now helping many high-ranking oilfield executives to make better business decisions and stay ahead of trends. …

In this update, we provide a round up of Wall Street frac sand demand projections for 2017 and 2018 and discuss how the forecasts have evolved dramatically over the past 4-6 weeks. We also discuss whether the leading edge estimates are even possible for the industry to deliver on. There’s …

The latest EOG Resources well in the Delaware basin is turning heads after a big IP24. It also has implications for frac sand consumption. We’ve got all the details for you in this update (take out our free 30-day trial below to read). There’s a lot more to this story… …

Drilling permit data from March showed increased operator appetite for drilling and more room to run for the rig count. We share a chart capturing the trend and break down the permit data into actionable analysis on hot spots and top operators. There’s a lot more to this story… To …

Along with many others in the industry, we actively monitor the Haynes & Boone Spring borrowing base re-determination survey each year. Released this week, the law firm’s latest survey suggests that bankers have shrugged off the capital destruction left by the downturn’s 120 O&G bankruptcies. There’s a lot more to this …

The conversation about frac sand this year has largely revolved around access to it. Topics of debate have fallen into three buckets: i) inflation, ii) logistics, and iii) whether the mines will be able to meet (or overshoot) the rising call on supply. But skyrocketing sand pumped per well has an …

Thanks in part to the renewed exploration push in the UK, Transocean just announced two new contracts for the Transocean Spitsbergen (a 2009-built UDW HDHE semi) for Statoil drilling programs. The dayrate is near break-even, but that’s the least interesting thing about these contract awards… Digging deeper, a $27mm difference in the contract …

Last November before the OPEC meeting, we published a 2017 US land rig count forecast, which called for about 825 US land rigs working at year-end 2017. At the time, our forecast called for sharper growth during 1H17 than consensus expectations, with the pace of activity gains leveling off during 2H17. In this …

Last week, we presented our business outlook for the oilfield to kick off the day at the WorkforceNEXT energy conference in Houston. This gathering is the largest for HR executives in the O&G industry each year. And attendance this year was a record high – a sign of the times. …

Current members login here to read full story… West Texas Ranchers in Winkler County know the name Black Mountain Sand well. Now, operators in the Permian are getting to know the name Black Mountain Sand. Soon everyone that cares about frac sand will know the name. The company is working on the …

Schlumberger’s position and perspective on the North American market might best be described as a love-hate relationship. Endorsing the Lower 48 onshore outlook is simply not in Schlumberger’s DNA. Even as the company describes challenges that may make the North American E&P model unsustainable, it can’t resist getting bigger in …

US tight oil activity continues to recover in a global vacuum. Since the US rig count bottomed in May 2016, international onshore drilling is essentially flat and offshore activity is down 14%. How much longer will this be the case? We share some important charts and describe how the outlook has …

Note: Each Friday in March, we are passing the keyboard to one of our readers to share perspective from the field. We hope you enjoy the thoughts these hand-picked contributors have to share. This week, Doug Sheridan shares some unique perspective on Weatherford’s legacy problem and potential opportunity. There’s a …

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… To read this …

Friday was a potentially transformative day for the US frac business. Not to be outdone by Halliburton’s big news Friday morning, Schlumberger and Weatherford dropped their own bombshell Friday evening. Schlumberger and Weatherford are combining their hydraulic fracturing businesses into a OneStim JV, which will be 70% owned by Schlumberger. …

In the recent past, US and Saudi drilling programs have exhibited an inverse relationship. The Saudis ramped aggressively into the downturn, and maintained elevated drilling levels while the US rig count crashed. Now as the US is ramping aggressively, the Saudis have toned things down a bit. Feature image credit: Instagram user …

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 …

There is a dark side to the booming Permian Basin frac market. This week, we followed a lead into the underbelly of the Permian Basin oilfield, investigating chatter we are now hearing about frac sand heists at transload terminals. We have now confirmed with multiple industry sources that recent thefts of …

Note: Each Friday in March, we are passing the keyboard to one of our readers to share perspective from the field. We hope you enjoy the thoughts these hand-picked contributors have to share. This week, former sell-side analyst Jeffrey Spittel joined us with a terrific look at the division in …

One of our takeaways from the Petroleum Connection’s frac sand conference in Houston earlier this month was the threat of cheap, quick supply coming online from brownfield capacity expansion. Over the past several weeks, this threat has fed investor concerns that looming supply growth will soften the frac sand market which …

Solaris Oilfield Infrastructure Inc. filed for a $100mm IPO late last week. Solaris is one of the frac sand last mile logistics companies highlighted in our deep dive report, which identified the company as a likely candidate to go public this year. Unlike some other new last mile solutions focused …

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 …

In our previous weekly rig count update, we noted that Permian growth has been slowing and provided some thinking as to why. This week, Lower 48 drilling surged, printing its best weekly gain since January. But the Permian was notably absent from the party. We’ve got charts, stats and analysis on …

Earlier this week, we published an in-depth look at Encana’s Davidson pad in the Permian. 64 wells are planned at this site, making it the largest full-scale development in the Permian. We believe that reader response to a report like this can often be more compelling than the report itself, for …

Note: Each Friday in March, we are passing the keyboard to one of our readers to share perspective from the field. We hope you enjoy the thoughts these hand-picked contributors have to share.     There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, …

Traveling down W FM Road 1787 south of Odessa before Hwy 349,  a well-worn dirt road wide enough for two-way traffic cuts off the main road. About two miles down this dirt road lies a monster. This is the site of Encana’s Davidson multi-well pad – a Permian phenomenon. It is the …

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… To …

Unconventional drilling in the Permian’s Midland and Delaware Basins has been increasing at a breakneck pace since 4Q16. Horizontal rigs going back to work on Midland and Delaware formations alone account for 1/3rd of the total increase in Lower 48 rig count since September 30, 2016. Over the past five weeks or …

Reports out late-last week suggested two significant offshore drilling M&A deals were in the making. One of the deals was confirmed Monday morning. The two deals are spearheaded separately by former partners John Fredriksen and Tor Olov Troim. Fredriksen’s deal is deepwater, Troim’s is a shallow water play. John Fredriksen …

This earnings season has been rough on the sand stocks. The sell-off appears to be the classic case of a crowded trade. Sand stocks we monitor had increased 433% from the bottom about this time last year. In the past three weeks (as they reported 4Q16 earnings), they’ve fallen 30%. Big Oil …

Note: Each Friday in March, we are passing the keyboard to one of our readers to share perspective from the field. We hope you enjoy the thoughts these hand-picked contributors have to share. Here is this week’s story… Why am I sitting in a hotel in Midland? It seems a …

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 …

On March 7, National Public Radio addressed the Permian Basin’s explosive growth in a broadcast airing across 900 US radio stations. Infill Thinking founder Joseph Triepke spoke with NPR for the piece, sharing industry insider perspective on West Texas drilling and frac’ing. While we gave a nod to the recovery, we …

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 …

Depending on the oilfield service or product line, we’ve heard of price increases of anywhere from 5% to 40% pushed through just in the past few months alone. As service companies look for new angles to justify higher list prices, they are increasingly pointing a finger at the labor pool. …

Supply chain inflation is a trending topic in O&G. One of the biggest debates in the oilfield today centers around the sustainability of the cost reductions E&Ps achieved during the downturn. How much was lasting process change and innovation vs. temporary supply chain price concessions? E&Ps will be far more …

Just a few months ago, US land rig management teams were still touting their long-term contracts as an asset. Highlighting backlog and term duration is a defensive posture contractors assume when operators have pricing power. Rig count can rise. Dayrates can trough. But until management teams start talking about spot …

This week, Infill Thinking attended and participated in the frac sand industry conference hosted by the Petroleum Connection. With a strong agenda, the conference attracted 150 attendees including some of the industry’s biggest executives. In this update, we are sharing some of our takeaways that confirm well established trends and consensus …

At this point, we see field development as a marketplace in the very early stages of turning around. As for a broader recovery in the deepwater markets, it’s not even the first inning yet. It’s more like the stretching routine before pre-game warm ups. There’s going to be a game, but …

On Tuesday morning, we extended an open invitation to all Infill Thinking readers: come by the Starbucks on Post Oak near the Galleria in Houston and have a coffee on Infill Thinking’s tab. We were on location writing the next big Infill Thinking story and enjoyed meeting with a great group of …

The US onshore rig count increased 3 rigs to 733 running last week. The US land rig count is now up 359 rigs from the May 2016 bottom. Much of these gains have come from the Permian, where growth is being driven by horizontal drilling in both the Midland Basin and the Delaware …

If you are subscribing, we are buying… your Starbucks drink of choice! We will be available to meet with readers and talk oilfield trends over coffee next Tuesday in Houston. Here are the details: When: Tuesday, February 28 from 7am to 10am Where: Houston Galleria area Starbucks located at Post Oak and …

After the market closed Thursday evening, Hi-Crush Partners quietly dropped the equivalent of an atom bomb on the frac sand business. In a busy press release that disclosed two other deals, Hi-Crush described in muted tones plans to build the industry’s first frac sand mine in the Permian Basin. This is …

This past weekend, we read a half dozen transcripts of earnings calls from the oil majors and national oil companies (NOCs). The big guys are all whistling the same tune. They are successfully re-engineering pending deepwater projects to fit $50 oil (and below). They are ready to clear their final investment decision …

ConocoPhillips is baffled by recent dayrate hikes by the US land drillers. And they aren’t the only operators that feel this way  we take a look at what ConocoPhillips’ CEO had to say about it and explore why the operators shouldn’t feel too bad about a few grand a day …

Next Monday at the Petroleum Club in Houston, the who’s who of the frac sand business will come together for the 2nd Annual Frac Sand Industry Update Conference. In a sign of the times, the event was oversubscribed so the venue has been expanded. By way of disclosure, we do not …

In Vail Colorado last week, Credit Suisse hosted most of the publicly traded upstream industry for the firm’s annual energy summit. Between runs down the slopes, oilfield C-suites talked 2017 prospects with their investors. While service companies were in the next room over talking excitedly about raising prices, E&P management teams …