Tag Archives: rigs

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 …

In the US, the O&G industry has begun to hire staff again for the first time in two years. We snapped this encouraging photo in front of a Halliburton completions yard while touring the Permian Basin in early-December. Source: InfillThinking.com Given what we know about the ongoing recovery and a …

Land drilling / pressure pumping hybrids Patterson-UTI and Seventy Seven Energy have agreed to join forces as 2016 draws to a close. Patterson-UTI will purchase Seventy Seven Energy for $1.76bn in an all-stock deal that includes the assumption and repayment of $336mm of net debt. This deal isn’t a bargain, as …

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 …

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 …

  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. …

Shares of Apache sank 7% Thursday, closing at their lowest level since the Alpine High wet gas discovery was announced in early-September. The transformational Reeves County discovery has made Apache the darling of investors for the past several months. Here’s what’s new… There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see …

In the upstream sector, carnage isn’t hard to find. In fact, we’ve all become a bit desensitized to it. But in this beaten-up oilfield, the offshore drillers stand out, not just for recent hardships but because years of austerity lie ahead. A construction overhang factors in, but that’s not the only problem facing the offshore industry. …