The Drilldown: in-depth answers to oilfield questions | w/ Richard & John Spears

As the US oil industry moves toward a “factory” drilling approach and looks to optimize efficiency, operators and service firms are challenged as to how best to measure performance. In this podcast John and Richard discuss whether “time-based” performance measurements such as MTBF (mean time between failure) or MTTF (mean time to failure) developed for industrial environments can be useful metrics for the oilpatch or whether other measurements such as MFBF (mean footage before failure) would be more relevant.

Richard walks us through the *concrete* steps that a cementer goes through to cement a well.

Oilfield equipment and service markets closely associated with well maintenance (well servicing, coiled tubing services, and artificial lift) have lagged during the current upturn. We discuss the outlook for brownfield investment in a world with low-geological risk shale development opportunities.   Oh! We also chat about induced permeability and the challenge of secondary and tertiary recovery in unconventional reservoirs.   Episode produced by Charlie Spears

We look back at Ep 46 (The Nostradamus Episode) and evaluate our predictions so far.

The amount of data the oilfield generates also produces a lot of "noise". John talks about how the industry is cleaning up how data is processed & made useful.

Pipelines leading out are filling up, so operators will have trouble getting oil to market. Some Permian operators might start prioritizing profitability rather than production. Meanwhile, the midstream companies will be building like crazy!

We've been involved in north of 300 M&A assessments over the past 10 years. Here's what we've learned.

A mid-year review of $70 oil and what that means for the industry.

How Operators, like Marvel, are choosing to exploit fields they know. More sequels!

A colder-than- normal spring has pulled natural gas inventories well-below average for this time of year. Does this mean gas prices might surprise to the upside in 2018? We discuss how expectations for gas production have held down gas prices even though inventories are low. Episode produced by Charlie Spears