Tag Archives: trends

For service and drilling contractors that want a piece of Saudi Aramco’s $30bn annual budget, a line has been drawn in the desert sand. As we write, the NOC is making some of its first big moves to make good on an ambitious local content plan unveiled about a year ago. …

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 …

  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. …

BP and Shell updated their spending outlooks Tuesday morning. The two Majors echoed recent reports from their peers by again lowering planned capex spending. As Independents selectively spend a little more in 4Q16 and prepare to reverse their budget cuts next year, the Majors continue to systematically lower their total spend. Optically, …

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 …

As we initiate our weekly rig count update here at Infill Thinking, it is nice to be writing about growth again for the first time in two years. Since the May 27, 2016 bottom, the US land rig count is up 154 rigs or +41%. Recent growth has been largely driven …

An important tone shift in how Halliburton addressed investors Wednesday morning foreshadows a different type of recovery ahead. Reading between the lines, we’ve dubbed the upcycle of the future a “roll up your sleeves” recovery. What will oilfield companies have to do to achieve prior KPIs in the recovery ahead? We discuss that and more… There’s …

Oilfield earnings season begins this week with Halliburton’s conference call. The tone on this upcoming round of calls is likely to be more positive than any time in recent memory. In this Thinking Ahead we outline key calls to monitor and discuss seven key themes we expect to be prevalent during the imminent earnings season. …