Fridays In March 2017 [Recap]

As an Infill Thinking subscriber, you have some very good company. Executives, analysts, traders, salesmen, investors, academics, attorneys, regulators, and engineers from all across the oilfield now take Infill Thinking. We are humbled by the brain power of the folks we write for. That’s why we decided to do something a bit different on Fridays in March 2017.

We invited a diverse group of well informed readers to write a guest post each Friday in March. The pieces they came up with have a long shelf life and are all must-reads. All of these pieces are originally published on Infill Thinking (we ask authors for 30-days exclusivity so you may see these elsewhere later, but you’ll definitely see them here first).

The March series was so well received that we have decided to make it a staple. In the last month each quarter, we’ll open up the platform to readers on Fridays. If you’d like to be considered as a contributor in the future, drop us a note at [email protected].

No previous writing experience necessary. If you have insight worth sharing from your niche in the oilfield, we’d love to give you a voice and we’ll work with you to make your story pop. We prefer the analytical stuff, but as you’ll see below, personal stories are great and often communicate insights that illuminate oilfield trends and solid business strategies.

Topics in March 2017 were wide ranging from an offshore corporate strategy outlook to a story of transition to a personal downturn journey. We hope you enjoy this real life perspective from your peers in the field. In no particular order, here is a look back at our guest features from March 2017.

Why Am I Sitting In A Hotel In Midland?

When I first met Neil Mackintosh about four years ago, he was a busy offshore executive overseeing more than 800 engineering personnel, in 8 different locations, including all subsea disciplines, with particular focus on subsea, pipelines, risers and associated systems. I remember being impressed by his recall of three decades of O&G experience in our early conversations. If a problem surfaces today, Neil’s probably solved some version of it years ago and he doesn’t forget much. Today, Neil is executive vice president of sales and marketing for Advisian, a role he’s held since July 2016.

Neil Mackintosh journey personifies a bigger trend in O&G. The Permian is capturing offshore wallet. So I asked Neil to write about how his career shift parallels the industry’s evolution. Offshore projects are renown for the highest standards in engineering and operational excellence. So having smart subsea guys like Neil focusing on the Permian is good news for operators. Read his story here.

From The Concrete Jungle To The Mountain Tops, With A Downturn In Between

Aramis Martinez is a physicist by training (he actually taught physics at the collegiate level for a while). But he follows and understands the business side of O&G better than most petro-technical professionals. In the oilfield, Aramis was a microseismic engineer. Now he climbs mountains. This is his downturn story…

U.S. Land To Offshore: Hold My Beer While I Send It

If you can’t write it better than them, ask them to write it for you! Here is an excerpt from Jeffrey Spittel’s epic page-turner on the offshore/onshore debate: “if we think about what the offshore landscape might look like in 12-18 months, the contrarian view begins to seem no crazier than your typical contestant on The Bachelor. A handful of impending bankruptcies will purge some of the ugliest balance sheets. Meaningful pools of capital that have been waiting patiently to capitalize on the carnage in the offshore supply chain could be deployed. Operators will have the opportunity to harvest the fruits of the industry’s collective effort to completely reinvent the way it approaches deepwater field development. And the relative gulf in risk-adjusted returns between shale and deepwater should begin to narrow as onshore oilfield services costs inevitably inflate to sustainable levels. Stay tuned. If the last twelve months have taught us anything, it’s that the cycle and sentiment can pivot dramatically when you least expect it.” This piece drops knowledge that will still be relevant years from now. Read the whole thing here.

Fulfilling The Promise Of Weatherford

While the multi-dimensional data Doug Sheridan collects over at EnergyPoint Research is impressive, what I personally admire the most is his knack for turning this data into meaningful, readable reports. Doug’s story-telling aptitude starts with a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and companies in it. Back in March when Weatherford had surprised the market with the hiring of Mark McCollum as CEO, Doug weighed in on the challenge facing the new CEO with data-driven insights. See them here.

The West Texas Update

Mike Rasco has found favor with the audience on LinkedIn of late as he is regularly sharing great stories, pictures, and humor from the field there.  Check him out. And hire him too if you need a good wellsite consultant on your next job. Although Infill Thinking is a serious publication focused on analytics and data, we enjoy a good laugh too. And Mike Rasco provided just that when he wrote in with his West Texas Update to kick off our March guest series. Read it here.