Infill Thoughts

Each Friday in June, we are passing the keyboard to one of our readers to share perspective from the field. This week, Ron Davis weighs on on a classic business conundrum in deepwater. The drilling contractors have, in an effort to downplay the daunting oversupply (and possibly drive down distressed …

A dramatic run up in the Saudi Arabian rig count preceded the OPEC November 2014 decision to become a price taker and defend market share. This of course triggered the biggest collapse in US drilling history. The decision to extend OPEC quotas in May was in fact predicted by just …

Is frac sand replacing rigs? It would appear so in the US onshore recovery. As unconventional drilling and completion science evolves, the industry’s surface footprint per barrel of oil produced is shrinking. A growing sub-surface footprint (which we can measure with sand) is replacing the surface sprawl. With the US onshore …

In the Permian Basin, horizontal drilling activity is up 101 rigs so far this year. This is more than 2x the next fastest growing play (Eagle Ford +41). In this week’s Infill Thinking rig count update, we get granular on Permian growth. We’ve ranked the counties across the Permian’s basin trifecta …

Is it counterintuitive to view a court ruling against an industry participant’s expansion plans as a good thing? Yes. However, in a niche where oversupply fears have crushed the stocks of publicly traded incumbents, maybe a legal governor on the expansion plans of the few can serve the greater good. …

Each Friday in June, we are passing the keyboard to one of our readers to share perspective from the field. We have handpicked these experts in their fields to share insights on key oilfield trends and debates. Writing in from the east coast of Canada, Jonathan Dunnett kicks off our Fridays …

Over the past two weeks, three different EOG execs spoke at three different investor conferences. Reviewing their commentary and separating signal from noise, here’s the latest on this E&P leader’s field tactics and development strategy. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to see the full update…  To read this update …

Tuesday was a day of dichotomy for the notion of operational scale in offshore drilling. Even as one drilling contractor paid penance for scale bought long ago, two others ignited the next round of consolidation, extolling the virtues of operational scale in this disaggregated sector. Taken together, these two news items …

  The first chapter in the Permian Basin frac sand mining story was the land grab (who was buying what where) and debate on viability. The 2H17 chapter will be execution, lab results, construction progress, and sales (whose construction is on time, whose deposit is better). One of the best datapoints to …

Today we are kicking off a new series, Follow The Leaders, in which we’ll be distilling real-time conceptual shifts discussed by leading unconventional E&Ps into quick, digestible updates. The purpose of this new series is to document only the most important big picture thinking, science, and experiments the US tight oil leaders are exploring …