Serious question here and wanted to see what personnel from a major oil company think about this topic. I will throw in a disclaimer, I work for a major service company. The story of major service companies in our industry for the last 20 years has been capital destruction. Through mismanagement or whatever, these companies are burning through cash at an alarming rate. From my vantage point, I see many service and suppliers going out of business this time [read this downturn]. I also see the supply chain for this industry being destroyed day by day. Do you or those at high management levels in your company feel that the day is coming, and perhaps soon, when you need a frac job, a workover rig, a logging job, cement job, artificial lift, and you make the phone call and nobody will answer? Just wondering...seems plausible to me at any rate.
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Hopefully you lose 80% of your 401k balance while waiting things out.
I was going to retire 2 months ago- then was sent home to “work” , its amazing i feel very fortunate being effectively retired and still receiving a salary. As soon as we are called back i will hand in my notice and leave. Hopefully it will be later rather than earlier. I happen to know of several other employees doing the same waiting game of chicken. There must be many employee's like me , “boomers” reaching retirement age who were planning on retirement, and are now hoping to receive severance pay and thereby get unemployment benefit as well. I wonder if management is concerned at all about getting us back to the office so as to pre-empt people like me? Probably not but hey. It’s a thought. I don’t know how many at the company are in this dilemma but statistically it can’t be insignificant. Every day in the US 10000 people are reaching retirement age , if we assume 2% of work Force per year thats equivalent to about 1000 employees here just for one year who the company might end up inadvertently giving severances packages who would be retiring anyway!
SLB can get f’ed for all I care.
That’s the last thing anybody here is worrying about. In fact, it’s not even a thing on the list of things we’re worrying about. As soon as we have money to spend again, someone will pop up to take it.
At 153wc3TC...it's "dumb" actually.
It all comes down to supply and demand. It really is that simple. The oil industry is grossly over supplied, not only in raw unrefined product but also in the myriad of service companies clamoring for a dollar. Just like the other poster said the entire industry needs to be thinned out in order for it to avoid some of these extreme boom and bust cycles and maintain a decent level of profitability for those who have the wherewithal to make it through the busts and sustain a successful business.
Rock bottom prices will eventually translate to rock bottom quality of service and people. You can pretty much count on that. The best and the brightest won't be going into the oilfield service business that's for sure, although I'm sure oilfield operators don't necessarily believe that's true today anyway. I would say service industry trends would be that prices increase due to players dropping out, but will overall quality and service level be all that great? That's the real question. Seems to me that the big service companies, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker, all have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, particularly if you read their layoff boards. I realize that you can't believe everything posted on these boards, but I'm sure at the same time there's a lot of truth posted under "anonymous".
yes, we see that, and that is exactly what you need to be able to increase prices on your services and make a decent return. Today we pick up the phone and there are 100's waiting to get the job. Capacity needs to be removed from the market. This actually plays more in your favor that ours. I am happy with the current rock bottom prices for services.
Dum question. As with everything else in business, it depends on ROI.
I don’t see that situation happening. Do you think there will be a time where we all give up our iPhones and go back to flip phones? Or move back to driving manual transmissions? As long as there are companies out there spending money to construct new oil wells, there will be another to provide services. Operators want to see service companies be just as successful as they are because that will result in good working relationships with good quality products. The companies that are not stretch out to thin within product lines and are disciplined with their capital expenses (no weekend hunting trips) will survive. Also companies that are innovative and continue to push new technology ( I.e. automative drilling rigs) will survive as long as they are smart with their cash.