Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Saturday, April 25th, 2015

Half of U.S. Fracking Companies Will Be Dead or Sold This Year

Author:     David Wethe
Source:     Bloomberg Business
Publication Date:     9:21 AM PDT April 22, 2015
 Link: Half of U.S. Fracking Companies Will Be Dead or Sold This Year
Stephan:   Here is some very good news about the future of Fracking. Lots of these companies are going to go out of business. I think it is notable that this prediction is coming from a very conservative business journal.
A Fracking rig

A Fracking rig

Half of the 41 fracking companies operating in the U.S. will be dead or sold by year-end because of slashed spending by oil companies, an executive with Weatherford International Plc said.

There could be about 20 companies left that provide hydraulic fracturing services, Rob Fulks, pressure pumping marketing director at Weatherford, said in an interview Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. Demand for fracking, a production method that along with horizontal drilling spurred a boom in U.S. oil and natural gas output, has declined as customers leave wells uncompleted because of low prices.

There were 61 fracking service providers in the U.S., the world’s largest market, at the start of last year. Consolidation among bigger players began with Halliburton Co. announcing plans to buy Baker Hughes Inc. in November for $34.6 billion and C&J Energy Services Ltd. buying the pressure-pumping business of Nabors Industries Ltd.

 Weatherford, which operates the fifth-largest fracking operation in the U.S., has been forced to cut costs “dramatically” in response to customer demand, Fulks said. The company has been able to negotiate price cuts […]

Read the Full Article