Remember the good ol’ days of 2014?  Neither do we. Time to move on.

A week from now Spears will release our revised Oilfield Market Report, and it will have the new world of sub-$30 WTI oil prices baked into the 2020 global OFS numbers, which means that global spending on oilfield services will fall from 2019’s $267 billion to 2020’s $211 billion (we might change this by next week’s release date):

For fun, I’ve penciled in 2021 if oil prices do not rise above $40 that year (we assume they reach no higher than $39 in 2021).  The $170 billion in 2021 would be almost 30% LOWER than the lonely year of 2016.

To the tens of thousands of people who read these little essays each week, know this:  There is no cavalry coming to rescue you. The only way Russia and OPEC can save the day is to cut production by 50% each (which won’t happen), and COVID’s economic gut punch will be tough to recover from.

If you are waiting for this to blow over, you are deluding yourself.  If you are sticking to your old play book, throw the playbook away.  

On the other hand, if you are innovative, this season might just be what you’ve been waiting for.  For our firm, these past 15 years have been good — we’ve gotten fat and lazy. The brave new world of 2020 has been the kick in the seat of the pants we’ve needed to finally bring out all those good ideas the team has been working on.  Stay tuned.