In a feature story on Bloomberg News Thursday morning, several research updates issued by Infill Thinking recently are featured prominently. Check out Joe Carroll’s latest must-read below… Fracking Crew Shortage May Push Oil’s Biggest Bubble Into 2018 Shale explorers pushing to expand oil production are struggling to find enough fracking crews …
Read More »Here’s What US Silica Has To Say About All The Permian Local Sand “Hoopla”
US Silica hosted a positive call to kick off 1Q17 earnings season for the frac sand industry this morning. The outlook provided was bullish for both demand and pricing. The company’s commentary on the emerging Permian local sands market both validated our own thesis and introduced cautionary notes into the …
Read More »Live From Dhahran, Here’s The 8 Most Important Things Schlumberger Said Friday Morning
With Schlumberger’s earnings call this morning, oilfield earnings season is officially underway. CEO Paal Kibsgaard addressed several of the themes we expect to dominate the conversation this earnings season including US price increases and activity strength and maybe over-exuberance, sluggish international conditions, aggressive frac reactivation, new business models in offshore drilling, …
Read More »How Much Longer Will This Be An Unfair Recovery? The International Outlook Is Being Walked Back.
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 …
Read More »I’ll Take The Worst Neighborhoods In O&G For $200, Alex
The hardest sell in the entire O&G industry right now is without question a newbuild offshore rig order. Demand for offshore newbuilds is actually negative. Contractors continue to push out delivery dates, in some cases paying up to avoid taking delivery. With little visibility on a recovery, shipyards are being forced to …
Read More »Reports From Big Sand Are Still A Few Weeks Out, So Here Are Three Datapoints To Tide You Over
The big public frac sand suppliers (companies like Hi-Crush, US Silica, Fairmount Santrol, and Smart Sand) will be closely watched when they report earnings this quarter. Expectations for increased proppant demand are high as the US shale industry gets back to work. But Big Sand won’t be talking about their own …
Read More »Halliburton Is Reactivating Frac Spreads For A Pretty Penny
Halliburton’s strategy for 2017 is shifting, and the company will have a whole different M.O. this year. Jeff Miller, Halliburton President expressed his feelings about the new year this way: “in many ways, 2016 was like a bar room brawl where everyone, and I mean everyone, took a punch. But …
Read More »Schlumberger Restores Its Focus On The Pursuit Of Growth… Outside The US Too
This morning, Schlumberger management hosted a conference call with analysts to discuss 4Q16 results and the 2017 outlook. The company kicked off oilfield service earnings season on a positive note. Following nine consecutive quarters of relentless workforce reductions, cost cutting, and restructuring efforts, Schlumberger is restoring focus on the pursuit …
Read More »Shale Executive Sentiment Index Surges Up To Levels Last Seen At $100 Oil
Two years into the downturn and at oil prices just half of prior highs, the US tight oil industry has begun to stage a recovery. We’ve all seen this new optimism in the tangible data. Rig count, capex, headcount, frac utilization – these are just a few of the US …
Read More »Baker Lite: Baker Hughes’ North American Frac Fleet Is About To Change Hands
For the past six months, Baker Hughes has publicly rethought its involvement in the pressure pumping business. Now a material transaction is possible before year-end. The initiative is part of the big push underway by all of the Big 3 oil service companies to lighten their asset bases. Said another way, the Big 3 …
Read More »