Candid is probably the best word to describe Covia’s conference call yesterday. Management owned up to the oversupply in the frac sand market – a reckoning our reporting has foreshadowed for more than 12 months now. Here’s what you need to know from the call. There’s a lot more to …
Read More »Sandless Spreads, White Space, Permian Mobes, and Price Stagnation. Lots Of Frac Market Talk Over The Past 48 Hours, Most Of It Unpleasant
Never a dull moment in pressure pumping. See what we landed in our “datapoint fishing net” during the past 48 hours. 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 …
Read More »Fully Delivered Frac Sand Has Carved Out A Meaningful Chunk Of E&P Wallet [Chart Of The Day]
In some large tight oil well AFEs these days, the frac sand line item can be as much as a quarter of well cost. Of course there is a lot more involved in shale development capex than just individual well costs. So for this chart of the day exercise, we …
Read More »PropDispatch’s First-To-Market Software Is Digitalizing The Last Mile For About 1/3 Of US Frac Fleets
This is the first installment in our Silica Valley Series which shines the spotlight on an increasingly critical part of the frac value chain: new software solutions in the last mile. A crop of new entrants are improving the frac sand industry’s “mind-muscle connection” on the highways from origin to …
Read More »Frac Hit Fear Index And Parent/Child Interference In The Tight Oil Narrative
We devote a lot of bandwith to the most pressing concerns facing tight oil development here at Infill Thinking. In the long-run, other constraints rise on the horizon. These are the big picture sustainability sort of questions for tight oil development. In this post, we list these big picture issues …
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 »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 »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 »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 »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 …
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