Tag Archives: rig count

Another week of US onshore rig count gains is in the books. But before we quantify that in our weekly statistical update (see full update below), the other side of the equation deserves a few words. Everyone is focused on rising rig counts today. Tomorrow they’ll be focused on dayrates. And …

US land drillers sent 2016 packing with a bang. Since May, the drilling recovery has looked exceptionally strong on a percentage basis. The December trend looked exceptionally strong on an absolute basis too with 65 US rigs returning to work. December 2016 delivered the best absolute rig count increase of …

The US land drilling market is exiting the worst downturn in history. Why not follow that with the sharpest rebound ever? That is exactly what is happening now. Since bottoming about 30 weeks ago, the US rig count has increased 60%. The 1985 recovery outpaced this one for 25 weeks before falling back. The only …

Back in October, the North American land market was bracing for a seasonal slowdown into year-end. Here’s the warning Halliburton CEO Dave Lesar issued on a conference call about 6 weeks ago: “Based on current customer feedback we remain cautious around customer activity due to holiday and seasonal weather-related downtime. Our customers …

We are in Midland/Odessa this week for meetings and site visits. The vibe here now is very different from our last visit 10 months ago. There is more field traffic on I-20, parking lots are fuller, and there is a stirring in the yards. In this post we discuss firsthand intel from …

Helmerich & Payne’s FlexRig3s have made the company the best-in-class US land driller for a decade. Ask any analyst who the best land driller with the best fleet is and they’ll say H&P almost unanimously. But will that always be the case? Now for the first time in a decade, management is having …

Last week, we rolled out an installment in our Thinking Ahead series taking a forward look at US production and estimating 2017 production levels. We’ve also been paying attention to operator commentary on 2017 drilling programs and capex. In this post, we add it all up and put our necks on the …

The biggest regional contributor to the US Shale Revolt will be the Permian Basin. The Permian is the only unconventional oil play where production has not fallen in the downturn. In fact, Permian production today is up 13% since that fateful OPEC meeting two years ago. Following it’s conventional production …

There were a lot of smart things about the Nabors analyst day last week. One of those was the timing. Nabors was smart to host its event after most of the other contract drillers hosted their earnings conference calls in the weeks leading up to the event – the timing …

  Our regular weekly analysis of Baker Hughes rig count statistics is below, but first some campaign speech. This weekend, we are taking a break from the political rhetoric to look at drilling campaigns. For the first time in two years, the US Independents are flexing up their drilling programs. …