For decades we’ve measured global oilfield Equipment and Services markets, building each market up from the bottom by estimating the product line sales of a thousand companies. This works for about 90% of the market, but what about the other 9000 regional service companies too small to measure? For those we plug in an estimate, call it “Others”, and move on to the next topic. 

That works fine until the market changes somewhere, and that change is now upon us in Russia, China, and the Middle East. A new crop of independent service companies has taken root, fueling the industry’s relentless pursuit to cut costs in West Siberia and Western China — just like the American E&Ps are doing in West Texas. By giving customers a choice, costs to drill and complete wells in these overseas markets are falling, service is improving, and a new class of international oilfield service entrepreneurs is emerging.

Take drilling — China’s directional market now has five or six service companies larger than SLB or BHGE. Russia is the same with a half dozen larger than BHGE. Artificial lift has a downhole pump company in Saudi Arabia that is now bigger than any of the majors in that country. 

Convinced of this, Spears and Associates is re-evaluating our quantification of “Others”; we will increase our estimate accordingly in most oilfield market subsegments. This will make the overall market somewhat larger than we have been previously assuming… 5% larger, perhaps. 

Here’s the lesson: Beware of the “Others” — these are the oilfield service companies thriving in today’s oil price environment.