Infill Thinking Lifting the O&G knowledge curve

During the past week or so, pictures have surfaced on social media showing a US onshore industry first in land drilling: simultaneous drilling accomplished by joining together two land rigs. We talked with management to learn more and discuss the implications in this update. There’s a lot more to this …

Smart Sand has been on the fence on whether to build a Permian mine since last year. Here are the latest details on their plans as we await the next round of management commentary on the status of their intent to build. There’s a lot more to this story… To …

Schlumberger will kick off oilfield service earnings season with their conference call on Friday July 20, with Halliburton’s report following on the next business day. Here are the top themes we will be listening for on 2Q18 conference calls: There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update …

It’s been a rough news week for Permian frac sand logistics. Incidents like this week’s fatal crash in Odessa remind us that driving is the most dangerous oilfield activity. There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a subscriber. If …

We refreshed our drive time analysis for the X local Permian Basin frac sand mines that we consider “firm” (either operational or showing progress moving towards first production). For this analysis, we force ranked the Top 5 mines for each key Permian sub-market based on proximity. There’s a lot more …

In this update yesterday, we noted a changing local climate towards the frac sand mining rush in Oklahoma. It’s even worse than we initially thought. After doing some more digging, we have decided that… There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you …

Clearly the forceful jury verdict in the last mile solution case this week is a significant win for the plaintiff, but final outcomes for the defendant could still span a wide range of possibilities… and have big implications for the last mile marketplace. There’s a lot more to this story… …

We submitted a series of public record requests to Oklahoma mining regulators this week to learn more about pending frac sand mine permit applications in the MidCon. Even before we submitted our questions, we observed a notable development in motion regarding MidCon regulation… There’s a lot more to this story… …

There’s always a risk of reading too much between the lines when analyzing executive comments. But the use of the word “first” to describe an in-basin mine in a recent investor presentation could have big implications. Does it foreshadow some in-basin capacity consolidation? There’s a lot more to this story… …

Continuing our World Cup / drilling analogy theme from last week, in this week’s rig count update we take a look at the trend in drilled wells that have been suspended from the completions “field of play.” There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research …

2Q18 was active in the field. Our research desk was hopping too. Infill Thinking published 99 updates, shipped 25 subscriber newsletters, and hosted 2 in-person reader meet-ups during the past quarter. You’ve got some fast growing company here. Our membership hit a new record high during 2Q18, growing by 19% …

2018 is halfway in the books. In the first half of the year, the US unconventional rig count increased 105 rigs to 827, a 15% increase. In the second half, “Bench Basins” are going to have to step up due to takeaway injuries suffered by this game’s superstar. There’s a …

A team of last mile specialists breaks down the MidCon sand procurement scene, digging deep into well, transload, and mine data to determine mileage differentials as procurement shifts to local sands. Don’t miss this chart and map… There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our …

As discussed in this Infill Thinking update four months ago, the Texas Comptrollers Office is in the process of re-writing the Texas Conservation Plan for the DSL – a key step in light of the recent petition to list the species as endangered filed by two private environmental groups. The old “Hibbits …

In the Permian Basin, frac sand mines took off with very little permitting friction. In fact, if you take the dunes sagebrush lizard out of the conversation, we actually can’t recall a single headline about regulatory hurdles slowing down project. Will the same be true as the Mid-Con mining story …

After publishing our Mid-Con in-basin sand plant map PDF a couple weeks ago, some readers have been asking the question: who is Forenergy? Searches on InfillThinking.com for the company have picked up as well. So we talked with the founder and CEO to get you some answers. There’s a lot …

Back in January 2018, we discussed some of blockchain’s potential applications in the oilfield supply chain. This morning, Diamond Offshore announced the first application of blockchain technology in offshore drilling. Diamond’s new blockchain features include some of the same possibilities we imagined five months ago. There’s a lot more to this story… …

It seems odd to make the following statement right after a bullish OPEC meeting that sent WTI surging 5% higher on Friday: We believe that the Permian Basin rig count has very likely… There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must …

One of the biggest challenges relative to Permian sand mine infrastructure, which is critical to the successful development of these facilities, is the availability of a viable supply of water for not only sand production, but potable use as well. A significant amount of effort has gone into finding reliable …

You probably saw this press release yesterday from Shale Support announcing in-basin M&A. We spoke by phone today with Co-Founder and CEO Kevin Bowen and got the full scoop. In addition to sand specifics, one of the big takeaways for us was that exploratory drilling and completions could heat up …

After oil’s 2014 crash, the US shale “popularity pendulum” swung hard against animal spirits, moving in favor of capital discipline. Outspending in shale is now taboo on both Wall Street and Main Street. But is the recent societal shift emblematic of lasting structural change or is it simply cyclical banter? …

In some large tight oil well AFEs these days, the frac sand line item can be as much as a quarter of well cost. Of course there is a lot more involved in shale development capex than just individual well costs. So for this chart of the day exercise, we …

One week ago, we got the first tangible datapoint on Permian takeaway capacity slowing down the world’s busiest oilfield. That datapoint came on the completions side as C&J slowed their frac spread deployment cadence. Today, we have the first tangible datapoint of an operator cutting back on the drilling side. …

With crude poised to potentially overflow Permian installed takeaway capacity, we thought it’d be worth taking a look at some big picture production vs. rig trends as the feature of this week’s regular rig count update. There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research …

A 60-year old Northern White sand producer who has been selling proppant for the past 5-10 years is the latest company planning an in-basin frac sand entrance in Texas. We learned more details after conducting an exclusive interview with the company’s president this morning. There’s a lot more to this …

Business schools often talk about the life cycle of an industry: Introduction, Rapid Growth, Maturity, and, eventually, Decline. While the last 18 months has made it clear we are still in the Rapid Growth phase, much of that growth is also due to the maturation of the industry and the …

Is the frac sand greenfield rush of 2017/2018 finally over? It’s a question worth asking since each of the Big 4 markets are now flush with planned local sand supply. In the chart below, we compare our total 2019 frac sand demand estimates for four major markets to announced local frac …

In a slide deck released this morning, Schlumberger provided some interesting comments on frac sand. 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, renew here. (Current members login here.) Subscribers get Exclusive research update newsletters High-caliber, data-driven analysis …

We discuss how upstream is reacting to the midstream crisis in the Permian basins. 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, renew here. (Current members login here.) Subscribers get Exclusive research update newsletters High-caliber, data-driven analysis and …

Epic quantities of frac sand and water will fracture a lot of low permeability rock in the Lower 48 this year. This same sand and water has also fractured the US oilfield supply chain. Conventional wisdom on market segmentation and task ownership is now being challenged. The chain of custody …

Calling all San Francisco Infill Thinking members: we’d like to buy you a mid-morning coffee / bite, shake your hand and chat oilfield trends with you. We are hosting our next reader meet-up event in the Bay Area this coming Monday. This will be our 5th member appreciation event of …

In the wake of the Mid-Con sand rush, we were left wondering just how many US completions will have access to plentiful local sand supply in the years to come. So we did some math and discovered that X% of US completions will soon have a local sand mine in …

Over the past 12 months, US E&P procurement teams have been under immense pressure to keep up with frenetic growth. The time suck of dealing with immediate challenges like frac consumable shortages and logistics issues has been huge. In fact, because of these pressing issues we believe that some operators …

After recent requests from members, we’ve created several different looks at the geographical distribution of Mid-Con frac sand production sites on various maps. Members are welcome to download maps in pdf form. There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be …

Apline Silica today confirmed two previous Infill Thinking reports via a press release on their new projects. Previously On Infill Thinking: March 28, 2018: By way of an open records request filed back in March, we learned that Alpine Silica had initiated the permitting process on a new frac sand …

Last week, Emerge Energy Service subsidiary Superior Silica Sands posted a cryptic capacity cliffhanger announcement on LinkedIn. In this update, we speculated that this might be Mid-Con expansion and a press release could be coming as early as this week.  This is exactly what happened… There’s a lot more to …

We caught up this week with Jason Holton, CEO of Omega Sands. Omega is a new entrant frac sand producer focused on a 1Q19 Mid-Con launch. Omega Sands has been flying under the radar planning their frac sand industry debut in Oklahoma… until now. During a phone conversation Monday afternoon, …

This is the second installment in our Research Rewind Series.  Rewinds aggregate our long-shelf life work on hot topics, providing comprehensive and thematic perspective. In our first installment, we looked back at the Permian Basin frac sand trucking situation. This week, we take a look back at the region where the frac sand …

One month ago, Infill Thinking predicted that two to three more planned Mid-Con frac sand plants would be identified soon (see last section here). Since that prediction, three new plants have come to light. These include: There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, …

Previously in our weekly rig count series, we noted that the Permian horiztonal rig count equals eight other large shale plays combined. Today, we extended this thought exercise to spending, dusting off our capex model to see how Permian drilling and completion budgets factor into total US and global E&P …

On Thursday afternoon, we gathered some market intel from LinkedIn posts. One left us with more questions than answers, and one got us thinking about last mile logistics optimization and truck reduction. There’s a lot more to this story… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be …

With Brent trading at almost $80/bbl and Permian constraint friction heating up (pipe, diffs, trucks, etc), it feels like it’s time to start getting more constructive on the offshore recovery theme. But can long-cycle deepwater returns ever compete with short-cycle Permian returns again? An expert weighs in for our first …

The last time a May day was this hot in Pecos, TX was seven years ago. The forecast calls for high temperatures of 108 on Thursday and 109° on Friday in Pecos. Next week, things get worse with temps projected to hit 110°. The average this time of year is …

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… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must be a subscriber. If your free trial has expired, renew here. (Current members login here.) Subscribers get Exclusive research update newsletters High-caliber, data-driven …

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… To read …

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… To read this update and receive our research newsletters, you must …

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 …