US Silica hosted a positive call to kick off 1Q17 earnings season for the frac sand industry this morning. The outlook provided was bullish for both demand and pricing. The company’s commentary on the emerging Permian local sands market both validated our own thesis and introduced cautionary notes into the …
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Oilfield Inflation Update: The Groundbreaking OCTG Trade Ruling That Underwhelmed
So far in the upcycle, the well cost inflation discussion has largely focused on hydraulic fracturing pricing (both HHP / stage pricing and consumables). Rightly so, as leading edge price per stage has essentially doubled year-over-year. Prices for surface casing and tubing (collectively OCTG) are rising cyclically as well and the market is …
Read More »Rigs vs. Sand Mines [Map]
With all the talk of local sands in recent weeks, we thought it’d be worthwhile to map rigs vs. mines. Shown on our map in this update is the dispersion of the US horizontal rig count plotted against the percentage of US frac sand capacity arising from a half dozen …
Read More »Yeah Science! Core Lab Talks Micro Proppant, Says Three Of The Four Trends Shaping Tomorrow’s Oilfield Involve Frac Sand
If you ever want to nerd-out, visit Core Lab’s Houston facility. After a tour, you’ll understand why “lab” is part of their name. This is the highest-IQ company in oilfield service. They are also closer to operators’ rock than any other service firm. Core Lab is not a pressure pumping …
Read More »Live From Dhahran, Here’s The 8 Most Important Things Schlumberger Said Friday Morning
With Schlumberger’s earnings call this morning, oilfield earnings season is officially underway. CEO Paal Kibsgaard addressed several of the themes we expect to dominate the conversation this earnings season including US price increases and activity strength and maybe over-exuberance, sluggish international conditions, aggressive frac reactivation, new business models in offshore drilling, …
Read More »Rig Count Charts For Three Recent Infill Thinking Observations: Haynesville, Delaware, & Sand Gap
This update started with three qualitative observations we wrote about over the past several days. These sent us back into the spreadsheets for today’s piece. We sliced and diced drilling data to expound on Haynesville green shoots, a Delaware Basin push, and frac sand valuation commentaries. There’s a lot more …
Read More »Emerge Energy Services Is Adding 3mmtpa To The Texas Frac Sand Supply Stack With Eagle Ford Play
Back in early-March, we wrote to subscribers that a frac sand miner was evaluating a deposit outside San Antonio to serve the Eagle Ford (see point 1 here), something we picked up on the sidelines of the industry’s leading conference. This morning, Emerge Energy Services announced they’ve closed an Eagle Ford …
Read More »$6.2 Billion Worth Of Oilfield IPOs Are Evidence Of A Race To The Bottom
It won’t come as a surprise to most of our readers that a slew of O&G IPOs are coming to market. Instead of rubbing our hands together with excitement, perhaps we should be wringing them in worry. We are now monitoring about 20 US onshore oilfield IPO deals collectively sized at …
Read More »Spring Fever: Wall Street Analysts Have Increased Their Frac Sand Demand Projections 30% In 30 Days
In this update, we provide a round up of Wall Street frac sand demand projections for 2017 and 2018 and discuss how the forecasts have evolved dramatically over the past 4-6 weeks. We also discuss whether the leading edge estimates are even possible for the industry to deliver on. There’s …
Read More »The Last Time Permian Operators Got Permits Like This, They Had 25% More Rigs On The Payroll
Drilling permit data from March showed increased operator appetite for drilling and more room to run for the rig count. We share a chart capturing the trend and break down the permit data into actionable analysis on hot spots and top operators. There’s a lot more to this story… Login …
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