We believe the following 20 questions encapsulate the transcendent themes facing the US oilfield service market during 2018. These are not in any particular order. We have included plenty of context and background for each question, but we stopped short of answering them. As the new year begins, so much can still …
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‘Twas The Frac Before Christmas
Infill Thinking Holiday Cheer For Christmas 2017: http://www.infillthinking.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Twas-the-Frac-Before-Christmas.mp3 Lyrics: ‘Twas the frac before Christmas, when all around the well Not a frac hand was stirring, or even a DSL; The frac sand was late, stored at transload with care, In hopes that a pneumatic trailer soon would be there. The …
Read More »One Million Frac Horsepower In 2018. That Is ProFrac’s Plan & We Caught Up With Management To Learn More
On Wednesday afternoon this week, we had a chance to touch base with ProFrac executives to learn about their ambitious 2018 growth plan. Infill Thinking spoke by phone with Ladd Wilks and Matt Wilks – Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of ProFrac, respectively. Here’s what we learned… There’s a …
Read More »The Primary Vision Frac Spread Count Forecast For Early 2018 [Guest Post]
This year, we’ve found it helpful to keep an eye on the frac spread count (FSC) maintained by Primary Vision, Inc. So we called our friend Matt Johnson, a principal at the data firm that maintains the FSC, to learn more about how this metric came to be and the methodology behind …
Read More »The Top 10 Infill Thinking Updates Of 2017
Subscribers will relive a lively year of action by seeing the top research updates Infill Thinking published this year. We also revisit the amazing guest posts shared by 21 contributing subscribers this year. Our readers are the smartest in the business! There’s a lot more to this story… Login to …
Read More »Will The Change In The NYMEX WTI Spec Shut In Canadian Crude? [New Post In Our Thinking Aloud Forum]
Just a heads up that a new thread has been started by William Edwards over in the Infill Thinking discussion forum. In the thread, William thinks about how a recent change in the Cushing WTI specs will impact Canadian prices and ultimately world crude oil prices. Spoiler alert – it’s not …
Read More »Atlas Sand Unveils Permian Buildout Ambitions That Would Make Them The Largest US Frac Sand Producer By Today’s Standards
Big news in the Permian Basin local sands story from a player that has remained under the radar. This will have everyone talking 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 …
Read More »A Look Back At 2017 US Onshore Drilling Growth By Basin [Heatmap]
As the year draws to a close, here’s a look around the nation at the hottest onshore drilling basins and how they stack up this year on activity growth. Also included is a discussion of how the actual overall trend in US drilling compares to expectations a year ago and …
Read More »Monday Was EL’D-Day’ – A New Last Mile Logistics Era Has Begun
Well, after all the outcry leading up to mandate day, did anyone really expect a smooth start? On Monday December 18, soft enforcement of the new electronic logging device (ELD) rules began. We discuss what happened when shifts began in this new era and what it may mean for the …
Read More »Cattle Guards Cause Permian Sand Truck Traffic To Reroute
In July, we wrote about the risk of hidden delays for trucks carrying locally sourced frac sand from new plants direct to wells, noting that some challenges are impossible to understand by simply looking at a map. These are things like stop lights, rail crossings, road quality, school zones, left …
Read More »You Are What You Are… And The West Texas Oilpatch Is Very Thirsty [Analysis + Link Library]
Water sourcing comes up often in our conversations with all sorts of different Permian Basin oilfield participants these days. Extreme thirst is the tight oil industry’s open secret – sourcing is more opaque than supply chain elements like rigs, horsepower, pipe and sand. We quantify surging water use in West …
Read More »Independent E&P Consolidation Is The Future. Is 2018 The Year? [Guest Post]
Experienced E&P strategist Paul Sparks has been thinking about the future of what today is a highly fragmented E&P industry. As the US unconventional business matures, will it always be run by 50+ public Independents and hundreds of smaller privates? Or is mass consolidation the future? History and some of …
Read More »All I Want For Christmas Is A New Frac Spread
50% of the 70 industry respondents to our recent 2018 outlook survey predicted that the US frac spread count would return to the prior cyclical high (450) next year. In our analysis of the survey results, we noted that this development would require material frac horsepower newbuild orders to be placed. …
Read More »Founder’s Welcome To Our 1st & Only Sponsor: Westward Environmental
2017 was Infill Thinking’s first full year in business. Readership growth this year has far exceeded my initial expectations, and the Infill Thinking team is honored and grateful to have earned your trust in our market intel. This year, we turned down multiple requests from oilfield companies interested in advertising …
Read More »Unimin + Fairmount Santrol Becomes A Reality
Unimin and Fairmount Santrol have decided to combine in a merger expected to close mid-2018. The deal will create the largest frac sand supplier in the US. The merger of these two sand bellwethers has been rumored “seriously” since October and “casually” since well before that. In fact, back in …
Read More »Ghosts Of Frac Sand Past, Present, And Future [Rigs vs. Mines Maps]
Since April, the geo-transformation of the frac sand business has accelerated. In the following charts, we’ve taken our previously published rigs vs. mines cartographical analysis a step further. In the slideshow below, we’ve included a map of historical frac sand supply sources, the new map with three West Texas in-basin …
Read More »Permian Frac Sand Suppliers Are Gathering This Week To Form An In-Basin Consortium [Exclusive]
On Wednesday, the fierce competition that has characterized the Permian Basin frac sand rush all year will be put on hold for a couple hours. We have exclusive details on why and what’s going on in this update… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the …
Read More »Our Problem Isn’t Oil Prices. It’s the Self-Inflicted Costs [Guest Post]
For more than two years, the North American Energy industry has struggled with low prices. Companies have idled workers and equipment, squeezed vendors, and taken additional cost cutting measures. But our problem isn’t oil prices. Rather, it’s the self-inflicted costs. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to …
Read More »The Independents May Intend To Temper Tight Oil Growth Next Year, But The Majors Sure Don’t…
On Tuesday, we warned that by taking their foot of the capex gas pedal at this point in the cycle, the Independents risk ceding share in shale development to the Majors. On Wednesday, Chevron’s 2018 budget release confirmed that this indeed will happen if actions follow words. There’s a lot …
Read More »New Fresh Water Entrant Plans To Pipe Make-Up Water Into Kermit Area Frac Sand Mines
During recent conversations with several Permian Basin industry contacts, we caught wind that a new fresh water entrant is marketing third party fresh water via pipeline to the new construction frac sand mines going in around Kermit. We did a bit more digging and then called the company and received …
Read More »Is It Really Different This Time? [Chart Of The Day]
We believe the recent surge of returns-focus rhetoric from E&Ps is having a considerable impact on consensus expectations for US shale E&P spending. This was evident in our recent survey, where participants expressed a bullish view on y/y oil price trends yet waxed conservative on the spending outlook. In this …
Read More »How Does Permian Basin Dune Sand Look In The Lab? [Charts & Analysis]
For this update, Lonquist & Co. has shared some independently collected West Texas frac sand sample data with Infill Thinking. The results establish some third-party benchmarks for locally-sourced Permian proppant specs. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update… To read this update and receive our …
Read More »Land Drilling Rig Capex Is Sinking To New Multi-Decade Lows
As E&P spending continues to recover, land driller spending looks poised to embark on a fourth straight year of decline. Precision Drilling released their 2018 capex program on Monday. We analyze the numbers in this update… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update… To …
Read More »The Results Of Infill Thinking’s 2018 Outlook Survey Are In…
Last week, we asked readers to answer 13 questions about the outlook for 2018. The focus of our survey was key trends and themes in the US onshore business. Participation was strong, with a diverse mix of respondents – all of whom are well informed on Lower 48 trends. In …
Read More »Market Cap Isn’t The Only Thing Tight Oil Is Taking Away From Offshore Drilling
Since 2013, the offshore drillers have underperformed six other upstream sectors we track by an average of 70%. In this update we look beyond the market cap dislocation at a key hire and recent IPO filings. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update… To …
Read More »The Long And Short Of Petitioning To List A Species Under The ESA [Guest Post]
Each Friday in the last month of each quarter, we pass our keyboard to an Infill Thinking subscriber to weigh in from their field. In October, two ENGOs provided a notice to the Comptrollers office of their intent to petition the US Fish and Wildlife Service to list the dunes …
Read More »Hiccups And Startups – The Very Latest On The First Nine Permian Basin Frac Sand Mines
Three Permian Basin mines are producing frac sand today. Over the next four months, six more plants are planned to begin commercial production in the Basin. Will all go according to plan? And who will win the race to be the next plant online? We have field-level updates on all …
Read More »Taking The Oilfield’s Temperature On 2018 [Call For Survey Responses]
We poll subscribers on key questions about the 2018 oilfield service outlook. Our Q&A will reveal consensus among some of the industry’s smartest minds about 2018 trends, themes, and debates. To participate and view the results, please login or subscribe. At Infill Thinking, we are very aware of what our …
Read More »This Chart Shows How The Oilfield Service Value Chain Has Been Turned Upside Down
In our weekly rig count update this week, we take a look at how frac sand volume per rig has trended the past few years. Plotting the sand/rig ratio reveals a rapid sea change in the Lower 48 oilfield service value chain. There’s a lot more to this story… …
Read More »The Sand Truck Driver Shortage Is Spilling Over Into Crude Oil Hauling
If oil drivers are leaving for sand in larger numbers now, that would suggest that frac sand hauling rates may have reached a tipping point that converts drivers. We examine the differences in hauling oil vs. sand both pay and scope and discuss a potential tipping point that could have …
Read More »In-Basin Adversary: 40mph Gusts In Kermit/Monahans Just Tested Sand Stockpiles
High winds ripped through the West Texas dune strip during the past couple days, reminding us of fugitive dust and inventory erosion risks. West Texas poses a unique environmental challenge that the frac sand mining industry has never had to deal with at scale before. We believe wind will be …
Read More »H&P Has Plenty Of 2018 Capex Budgeted To Upgrade Their 100+ Super-Spec Rig Candidates
Helmerich & Payne closed out C3Q17 earnings season for the land drillers late-last week. Here are the three statements that we found most interesting… 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 …
Read More »Are West Texas Producers Unnecessarily Taking A $5/Barrel Hickey?
There’s a new reader-submitted post in our thinking aloud forum, please visit the thread here to read and discuss how (and potentially why) the oil price rally is masking some important disconnects. Emerging discounts are impacting tight oil producers who sell product based of WTI benchmarks, but it may not …
Read More »Two Fatalities In Permian Frac Sand Handling In As Many Months Raise Concerns
This is the kind of update we hate to write. Every O&G company we know goes to great lengths avoid fatal accidents. Few industries emphasize safety as much as O&G. But in a physical business like this, occupational hazards are very real. Our coverage will serve two purposes and two …
Read More »New Frac Sand Entrant Opens A 3mmtpa Permian Mine, Plans Second Site [Exclusive Details, Photos, First Look]
Infill Thinking visited the third Permian Basin frac sand mine to come online back when it was under construction in August. With the plant coming online last week, we share exclusive details from our time on site with management as well as the very latest on the startup from our …
Read More »Frac Sand Scattershooting Beyond The Permian: Eagle Ford Cameo, M&A, Barged Sand, Intensity Debate, and more…
Today we are wrapping up our frac sand scattershooting series with our third installment. feature image used with creative commons license 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 …
Read More »It Took Just Over 400 Frac Sand Trucks To Break A STACK Record [Follow The Leaders]
We did some math on the record breaking well announced by the STACK leader 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 must be a member. If you are new to Infill Thinking, …
Read More »Establishing A 2018 Tight Oil E&P Capex Growth Floor? The Most Budget Conscious E&P Set A 16% 2018 Increase Vs. Prior 2017 Plan
Anadarko’s 2018 capital spending program was released Thursday morning. It is one of the first detailed 2018 E&P budgets to be released this budget season. Given their focus on discipline and returns and leadership in crafting a sustainable framework for developing tight oil, Anadarko’s E&P capex budget should help establish …
Read More »In The Nation’s Two Biggest Liquids Plays, It’s A Tale Of Two Cities
In this weekly rig count update, we take a quick look at the rig count evolution of today’s two most important US onshore markets: West Texas and Oklahoma. You may remember the following chart from an update early this year when we wrote about the bifurcated Permian market place…. …
Read More »About 80 Trucks A Day Are Moving Out Of Aequor’s Gates Out In Culberson County Right Now
We checked in with Aequor management out in Culberson County for an update on the Permian Basin’s second online frac sand mine. 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 …
Read More »It’s Time To Spin The Globe Looking For Signs Of Life As Brent Flirts With $65/Barrel
The recovery in oilfield service (OFS) activity and pricing outside the US has been waiting in the wings for three years. Outside the US, there have only been a few international bright spots – non-US oilfield growth has been non-existent. Most countries’ oilfield service markets have been dragging bottom all …
Read More »Permian Frac Sand Scattershooting Part 2: Smart Sand’s Plan, Well Performance, New Contracts, Delaware Usage
Another installment in our popular series of tidbits on Permian Basin frac sand mine scene happenings. 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, …
Read More »Canary In The Coal Mine? A Pecos Spring Just Went Dry For Just The Third Time In Recorded History
On the heels of an industry-first Delaware Basin water deal signed about a week ago comes a report from a Permian rancher to our desk that a historic spring has gone dry. In this update, we examine the brackish water requirements implied by frac sand volumes, discuss the dry spring’s …
Read More »US Silica Customer: “Most West Texas Frac Sand Mine Sites Are Just A Wooden Shack At The End Of A Long Dirt Road”
US Silica reported better than expected 3Q17 and a very strong outlook for 2018 Monday evening. Tuesday morning on the conference call, we recorded market insights on SandBox, West Texas capacity, updates on US Silica’s Crane & Lamesa plants, 2018 overall demand, contracting activity, the outlook for Northern White, among …
Read More »Permian Frac Sand Scattershooting Part 1 – Minegate Price Clue, Coating Facility, Site Updates, Skeptical Operator, and more…
The following list is baker’s dozen of assorted datapoints and tidbits we’ve heard about the frac sand business over the past couple weeks. This piece addresses the goings-on in Permian frac sand. We’ll have another installment of frac sand scattershooting later this week to address trends in the broader market. …
Read More »Although Garden Variety Pad Rigs Are Sold Out, A $30mm “Mega-Pad-Ready” Newbuild Pitch Doesn’t Seem To Be Gaining Traction
A new type of land rig is being proposed to tackle mega-pads in the very deepest sections of the Wolfcamp. In this post, check out the latest on operator interest as well as the features that make this rig unique and cost about 30% more than the current shale-ready rig …
Read More »Reading The 2018 US E&P Capex Tea Leaves As Operators “Apologize” For Growing
This week, E&P management teams talked with investors about the big picture framework and mindset this budget season. We recap the key takeaways from the key players and review the overarching themes of 2018 budget season and what this means for oilfield service contractors. There’s a lot more to this …
Read More »A STACK / Delaware Leader Has Bought All Its 2018 Finer Mesh Sand From Southern Regional Mines
The unrivaled STACK E&P leader (and major Delaware player) said this Wednesday that they have contracted all of their 2018 frac sand requirements. This is newsworthy in and of itself, but more noteworthy is the geographical sourcing. We provide details and think through the market implications here. There’s a lot …
Read More »Fixer Upper Star Mark McCollum Unveils The Specifics Of Weatherford’s Renovation
Last quarter, Mark was just getting his footing and undertaking a strategic review of the organization he inherited. This quarter, he got much more specific on what the Weatherford of the future will look like. Mark’s plan is more than a fresh coat of paint and new granite counter-tops. It’s …
Read More »Forum’s Revenue Inversion & M&A Strategy Underscore A Seller’s Market Developing In NAM Completions
On Tuesday, Forum Energy Technologies said their NAM completions business has become their largest revenue generator. Completions and production/infrastructure (C&P) segment revenues contribute 80% of the global oilfield products company’ top line. Moreover, 85% of Forum’s sales are onshore and 80% come from North America (NAM). This is a company …
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