Source: RADAR report, Issue Dated August 11, 2016
The latest shifts in operators’ rig fleet demographics suggest that the recent rig count gain has a soft underbelly, with its growth rate likely to flatten out in Q4, according to RigData’s RADAR Report. The large-fleet (≥10 rigs) group dominated the active rig count before seeing its number halved with the bust. Conversely, the smallest-fleet group (≤3 rigs) share swelled in 2016, trading places with the large-fleet cohort’s market share lead from 2014. The market share for private operators, which accounts for most of the ≤3 rigs fleet total, today tops the combined share of the majors, large caps, and mid-caps.
In 2Q 2009, the post-bust drilling recovery was led by small operators drilling mostly conventional oil wells. Now, as then, these more-nimble operators are the first to drop out and the first to jump back into the drilling fray. But smaller operators, following historic patterns, tend to spend down their budgets as yearend nears. Their larger counterparts will prove slower to respond to the recent oil price gains, limiting . . . ..
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