Our firm, now in its 56th year, is global, but we still thrive and starve on the trajectory of the US land oilfield market.  It has surprised us – pleasantly – how well January 2021 is turning out for our company here in the Magic City.  Apparently the oilfield’s fixes and adjustments are largely done, the North American part of the market is two full quarters back into growth mode, and folks are looking for opportunities to expand.  Opportunities are everywhere, but because the US land part of the oilfield is diverse, the opportunities are diverse.

Here’s a few charts to illustrate the diversity or, rather, non-uniformity of working conditions in three regions of the US – MidContinent, Northeast and Permian.  The charts I’m showing here are histograms of the number of wells found on pads in each region and the number of pads in each category.  In the first chart, for example, we are forecasting that about 250 3-well pads will be built, drilled and completed in 2021 in the Permian:

In the Permian, pad configuration is quite predictable – most are two, three or four well pads with a few outliers that can get pretty big.  A service company bidding on wells in the Permian knows that work will be contracted in 2-4 well packages.  And that the geography will be flat and dry, but the geology will be all over the board.

In the MidContinent region (Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle, mostly), 2021 drilling will be mostly 2-well pads and rarely anything more than 5 wells on a pad.  The service company bidding on the Oklahoma well opportunity will probably be offered a 2 well package in fairly flat, dry geography and geology that varies a lot:

Northeast is the humdinger.  Well pads range from one well to 19 with a geographical component that ranges from plain to nutty.  Geology, however, is more uniform than the other two basins we just looked at:

As companies go back to work in 2021, it is important to remember that local knowledge is key to rapidly adopting efficiencies and keeping people happily working for you.  

Let’s not immediately mess up this next boom.