In this time of business turmoil, operational issues can seem like an afterthought. In a piece several weeks ago, we presented data showing how the pandemic and oil price crash have distracted industry leaders from critical field development optimization issues. In this update, we argue that it’s time to get …
Read More »Marcellus Drilling & Completion Trend Spotlight [Appalachian Chartbook]
There’s been a lot of focus on the Lower 48 natural gas plays as a source of relatively strong oilfield service demand in the oil crisis. This week, we took a data-driven look at a variety of activity metrics in the play – a “wellness check” if you will… There’s …
Read More »Nowhere To Go But Up? Taking The Oilfield’s Pulse As The Dust Settles On An Epic Downturn
By putting our heads together as a group, Infill Thinking members will establish an important baseline this summer for understanding the “what now” and “what next” in the new paradigm emerging for the oilfield marketplace after the worst crisis in shale’s history. There’s a lot more to this story… Login …
Read More »As The Texas Frac Fleet Sinks, Local Sand Capacity Rapidly Goes Offline [Chart Of The Day]
We estimate the active frac fleet count across the two big Texas oil plays has fallen from up near X crews in 1Q20 down to only about X active fleets today. This is now old news, but it still takes our breath away to see that in print. Obviously, nobody’s …
Read More »Holiday Weekend Reading
Happy Memorial Day Weekend! We wanted to flag a few of our more in-depth pieces published recently in case you missed them and have some downtime to catch up on reading during the long weekend. Here are five relevant reference pieces on the downturn from our research flow over the …
Read More »In-Basin Frac Sand Mine Hours Were Ticking Lower Even Before The Malaise Set In [Chart Of The Day]
A data-driven look at operating activity trends for the Lower 48 local frac sand mining industry. 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 »Here’s What The Boots On The Ground Say About Active Frac Crews, Basin-By-Basin [Data Table]
We have arrived at the following ranges for active frac crew counts by basin based on information received from multiple plugged-in contacts we trust. This isn’t necessarily “Gospel,” and you may have hard data you are relying on that falls outside these ranges. But there is value in knowing where …
Read More »Here Are The Latest Minimum Crew Counts By Company As We Follow The Frac Fleet To The Bottom
It seems like everyone from Midland to New York that cares about the oilfield market is running their own frac spread count tracker out of their quarantine quarters these days! So how about some factual inputs and validation for your own version of the latest frac action (or lack thereof)? …
Read More »Sometimes A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words… Or A Million Horsepower
The picture you’ll find in this update might just become the iconic shot that defines this downturn – similar to those stacked rigs in that H&P yard off Business 20 in North Odessa in the last downturn… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update… …
Read More »These E&Ps Haven’t Publicly Quantified 2020 Crisis Capex Cuts Yet [Budget Revision Watch List]
As 1Q20 E&P earnings season gets under way, there are just a handful of US E&P operators that haven’t publicly disclosed how much they’ll cut their 2020 spending programs in the wake of the crisis. There are some common traits shared by some of these companies including… a) gas exposure …
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