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 »Our Problem Isn’t Oil Prices. It’s the Self-Inflicted Costs [Guest Post]
For more than two years, the North American Energy industry has struggled with low prices. Companies have idled workers and equipment, squeezed vendors, and taken additional cost cutting measures. But our problem isn’t oil prices. Rather, it’s the self-inflicted costs. There’s a lot more to this story… Login to …
Read More »E&P Innovation Models – Revealing A Case Study Of How To Do It Right
They say necessity is the mother of invention, and no one in the oilfield understands necessity better than the operators themselves. Today, tight oil is at the technological forefront of the oil and gas industry. Exploiting low permeability, heterogeneous rock at $50 oil makes invention and innovation a requisite not …
Read More »Henry Ford Didn’t Build A Faster Horse And Neither Should You – 3 Big Data Mistakes The Oilfield Keeps Making [Guest Post]
The big data hype machine can be powerful, and it’s tempting to believe that building and maintaining an effective analytic capability is effortless, with limitless benefits. Today, every company in the oilfield is in the midst of a tech / big data / automation overhaul. In this guest post, Steve …
Read More »H&P Buys Their Way Into The High-Tech Drilling Arms Race
Helmerich & Payne, the clear first mover in the last rig technology cycle, has been more “middle of the pack” this time. Until now. This week, H&P bought their way into the high tech drilling conversation with the acquisition of MOTIVE Drilling Technologies. The last time H&P press released an …
Read More »The US Land Drillers Face A Prisoner’s Dilemma As Market Leaders Automate
Although the drilling rig itself is only about 10% of total onshore well costs these days, it has become the epicenter of the industry’s latest technology craze: automation, digitization, and big data. As market leaders embark on a new technology cycle, drilling days/well are poised to keep trending down. One day …
Read More »Is Baker Hughes Over-Innovating?
Baker Hughes seems to be taking an assembly line approach to innovation, focusing on product launch volume as an important KPI. This is in stark contrast to Steve Jobs’ disruptive approach to innovation, where he would focus on a single game-changing idea for years at a time. We’ve recently become …
Read More »E&P In A Nano-Darcy World – A Brute Force Enterprise Finding Elegance
On a conference call in 2011, the always eloquent Clay Williams of National Oilwell Varco (then CFO, now CEO) said: The unconventional shale model is utterly unlike drilling a generation ago, which saw fleeting glimpses of precious darcy reservoir rock here or there, elusive four-way closure, a rare and fortuitous geologic …
Read More »On OPEC Day, US Operators Focused On Making Better Wells Instead
While the rest of the world focused on OPEC on November 30, US operators were focused on making their tight oil wells more effective with cutting edge innovation. We spent OPEC day in Houston with 35 senior US completions executives at the Darcy Completions Forum, squarely focused on emerging technologies …
Read More »Schlumberger Pushes Pricing, Talks Superlaterals And Cyclical Bottom
On Schlumberger’s conference call Friday morning, CEO Paal Kibsgaard made one central theme very clear. He is preparing his organization for growth again. Conversations with almost every Schlumberger customer on pricing increases have begun. Outside of Asia Pacific, Kibsgaard sees tender shoots of recovery sprouting in every market across the globe. There’s a …
Read More »