Oilfield Layoffs

[Danlxyz + 62]

First the rig count goes down, then the service companies start their layoffs.

First the boom, then the bust.

Halliburton lays off 650 employees in four western states
https://www.oilandgas360.com/halliburton-lays-off-650-employees-in-four-western-states/

Houston oilfield service giant Halliburton has laid off 650 employees in four western states from New Mexico to North Dakota. In a notice filed on Monday with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Halliburton reported that the company laid 178 workers from its Grand Junction, Colo. office.

[Justin H + 3]

Devon just laid off 40 employees here in okc at the home office. They had been doing further restructuring( acerage sales, etc )so the 40 may be a result of that.

I understand the Halliburton cuts came with offers to relocate to stronger fields.

[Danlxyz + 62]

3 minutes ago, Justin H said:

Devon just laid off 40 employees here in okc at the home office. They had been doing further restructuring( acerage sales, etc )so the 40 may be a result of that.

I understand the Halliburton cuts came with offers to relocate to stronger fields.

That is an advantage of working for a big company like Halliburton.

[James Regan + 1,776]

Another day in the Patch-  WOW really lay offs in the Oil Industry and now the Shale Industry is being affected, remember "Drill Baby Drill" its like drilling for bonus you drill yourselves out of jobs. The industry as a whole knows the shale plays are not a sustainable model. We will slowly be shifting to a happy medium of conventional and unconventional it doesn't make any sense to put all your eggs in one very ropey basket.

Expect more low rig counts until we weed out the money grabbers and the big boys take control again, US shale has done some real damage to the Oil Industry as a whole, try and think of your brothers in the GOM etc. 

To be honest this has been a long time coming.

Edited October 10, 2019 by James Regan

[Justin H + 3]

1 hour ago, Danlxyz said:

That is an advantage of working for a big company like Halliburton.

Yea, that's one of the few advantages, I worked for GE oil and gas during Jeff Immelts tenure . We built the " flagship" office in Odessa, had all types of bigwigs there for the grand opening.

We had 22 brand spanking new f250 king ranch trucks( $80,000 a pop they told us) it was like pulling teeth to get the trucks outfitted with $3000 worth of tools for the jobs.

I fell asleep and rolled one of the trucks, it was easier getting a new truck than it was tools.........priorities are sure out of whack in big companies😁

[ronwagn + 6,290]

8 hours ago, Danlxyz said:

First the rig count goes down, then the service companies start their layoffs.

First the boom, then the bust.

Halliburton lays off 650 employees in four western states
https://www.oilandgas360.com/halliburton-lays-off-650-employees-in-four-western-states/

Houston oilfield service giant Halliburton has laid off 650 employees in four western states from New Mexico to North Dakota. In a notice filed on Monday with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Halliburton reported that the company laid 178 workers from its Grand Junction, Colo. office.

Something to do with Colorado now being anti oil and natural gas production in their backyard?

[Tom Gagnon + 3]

So let's talk about "low-order guns."  Down-hole explosives are arranged in a pipe, which is lowered down a well by a wire-line crew, and at a certain dept an electric charge is sent down the line to make the explosives go "BOOM!"  Ideally, holes have just been created to allow for gas to enter the well, and later for fracking fluids to be injected in the rock formations just beyond the well casing.  More often that you think, however, there appears merely a bump on the gun (i.e., the pipe full of explosives).  This is called a low-order detonation.  When such a gun comes out of the hole, and wire-line workers spots this sort of thing, they scramble and hide the evidence from "the company man."  Otherwise, they would have to go back to the shop and get a new gun and do it all over again.  This sort of thing has been much more common than what might be assumed, and it is essentially fraud.  The business is unkind, and, really, especially where any aspect of fracking is concerned, a regular fraud.  In about a year, hopefully not more, I'll publish more on this in another venue.  In the meantime, know that your investments are in a dirty (criminal) business.  When you lose everything, don't blame the environmentalist.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Tom Gagnon said:

The business is unkind, and, really, especially where any aspect of fracking is concerned, a regular fraud.  In about a year, hopefully not more, I'll publish more on this in another venue.  In the meantime, know that your investments are in a dirty (criminal) business.  When you lose everything, don't blame the environmentalist.

Going to make lots of friends here, I see....

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

8 hours ago, Justin H said:

Yea, that's one of the few advantages, I worked for GE oil and gas during Jeff Immelts tenure . We built the " flagship" office in Odessa, had all types of bigwigs there for the grand opening.

We had 22 brand spanking new f250 king ranch trucks( $80,000 a pop they told us) it was like pulling teeth to get the trucks outfitted with $3000 worth of tools for the jobs.

I fell asleep and rolled one of the trucks, it was easier getting a new truck than it was tools.........priorities are sure out of whack in big companies😁

I'm just going to say, from my personal professional dealings with GE oil before and after the merger with Baker Hughes, they have a LOT of  low IQ people running things. I felt very sorry for the Baker guys who had to report "up" to a GE guy with 4-5 years experience versus their 30. Lots of good people took early retirement rather than deal with the BS

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Going to make lots of friends here, I see....

Is Mr Ethanol back?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

9 hours ago, James Regan said:

Another day in the Patch-  WOW really lay offs in the Oil Industry and now the Shale Industry is being affected, remember "Drill Baby Drill" its like drilling for bonus you drill yourselves out of jobs. The industry as a whole knows the shale plays are not a sustainable model. We will slowly be shifting to a happy medium of conventional and unconventional it doesn't make any sense to put all your eggs in one very ropey basket.

Expect more low rig counts until we weed out the money grabbers and the big boys take control again, US shale has done some real damage to the Oil Industry as a whole, try and think of your brothers in the GOM etc. 

To be honest this has been a long time coming.

What goes around, comes around.

The players in the shale oil/LTO game never considered the damage they were creating or jobs lost in the international oilfield for the past 5 years, so they should expect zero sympathy now that the LTO plays are doing exactly what everyone not in the game told them would eventually happen.

I have alot of sympathy for the third party services guys and gals. They have been taking a beating from the shale oil players for years.

[PE Scott + 563]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I have alot of sympathy for the third party services guys and gals. They have been taking a beating from the shale oil players for years.

On the frac side I've seen the stage tickets drop by 80% I'd guess. Service companies hardly have anything to make margins on anymore. Many things, like proppant and frac chemicals, are given to the lowest 3rd party bidder. Equipment is run into the ground in order to get as many stages done a day as possible. Operators aren't concerned with the damage they do to equipment or that saving $600 dollars on FR causes $1000s of dollars in additional wear on fluid ends and related equipment. The operators can squeeze a nickel until the buffalo shits when they want to. I'm honestly amazed by the rates they've negotiated for services. 

[PE Scott + 563]

5 hours ago, Tom Gagnon said:

So let's talk about "low-order guns."  Down-hole explosives are arranged in a pipe, which is lowered down a well by a wire-line crew, and at a certain dept an electric charge is sent down the line to make the explosives go "BOOM!"  Ideally, holes have just been created to allow for gas to enter the well, and later for fracking fluids to be injected in the rock formations just beyond the well casing.  More often that you think, however, there appears merely a bump on the gun (i.e., the pipe full of explosives).  This is called a low-order detonation.  When such a gun comes out of the hole, and wire-line workers spots this sort of thing, they scramble and hide the evidence from "the company man."  Otherwise, they would have to go back to the shop and get a new gun and do it all over again.  This sort of thing has been much more common than what might be assumed, and it is essentially fraud.  The business is unkind, and, really, especially where any aspect of fracking is concerned, a regular fraud.  In about a year, hopefully not more, I'll publish more on this in another venue.  In the meantime, know that your investments are in a dirty (criminal) business.  When you lose everything, don't blame the environmentalist.

I guess I don't understand what you think you're getting away with. Assuming the company man is worth his day rate, he's going to observe the guns coming out of hole and make sure they've all gone off. For that matter, the company man should be present in the WL truck during pumpdown and to observe the plug is set and the guns are fired.

Once you step into the frac van, we'll calculate our displacement to plug depth, pump and seat a ball sealing off the previous zones, and watch for a breakdown pressure. Typically follow the ball with some HCl acid to clean up the perfs and allow better communication with formation. My point being, there are several steps taken to verify communication with the zone. In addition, we sometimes perform "step down test" to verify the number of perforations communicating with formation. 

Maybe I'm missing something your trying to communicate here, but I'm uncertain where you're pulling the wool over anyones eyes in this scenario. 

That being said, I've seen a WL crew shoot guns 500ft below surface, in the lubricator, and at incorrect depths ( like setting a plug 13 zones shallow). I've heard of them trying to cover all sorts of stuff up. I've not known them to get away with it. What they do is just to transparent to the rest of the frac operation.

 

Edit: @Tom GagnonI went back and read some of your previous comments where you illuded to being an entry level worker assembling guns on a wire line crew. SMH....10 minutes in an entry level position and you think you're an authority on hydraulic fracturing? 

This is why it's so hard not to be skeptical of journalist. What's fraud is projecting authority on an industry you barely have any experience with and quite obviously little understanding of.

Edited October 11, 2019 by PE Scott

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

In my experience (notice the qualifier) you would never be able to pull mis-fired or partially fired guns out a well without it being noticed. There are simply too many eyes on the guns coming out, strictly for safety reasons, for someone not to notice.

In a normal operation you’d have the roughneck and driller, HSE reps, the toolpusher, the company man and the gun crew.

Furthermore, the pressures to inject would be much higher than expectations.

How do you lay down and hide an unfired or partially fired gun?

[PE Scott + 563]

13 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

In my experience (notice the qualifier) you would never be able to pull mis-fired or partially fired guns out a well without it being noticed. There are simply too many eyes on the guns coming out, strictly for safety reasons, for someone not to notice.

In a normal operation you’d have the roughneck and driller, HSE reps, the toolpusher, the company man and the gun crew.

Furthermore, the pressures to inject would be much higher than expectations.

How do you lay down and hide an unfired or partially fired gun?

Exactly, that's a pretty big deal. I have to assume hes saying the guns go off but the charges are ineffective or not up to snuff? 

Even in that instance, treating pressures would be noticeably higher if some or all of the charges were underpowered/defective.

Honestly, I've had guns that didnt go of at all, but I cant say I've had guns that went off and didn't perforate. Of course it would be difficult to tell for certain if 1 of 12 guns, for example, underperformed.

Edited October 11, 2019 by PE Scott

[James Regan + 1,776]

1 hour ago, PE Scott said:

Exactly, that's a pretty big deal. I have to assume hes saying the guns go off but the charges are ineffective or not up to snuff? 

Even in that instance, treating pressures would be noticeably higher if some or all of the charges were underpowered/defective.

Honestly, I've had guns that didnt go of at all, but I cant say I've had guns that went off and didn't perforate. Of course it would be difficult to tell for certain if 1 of 12 guns, for example, underperformed.

Guys I ran CSTS and Perforation strings for Schlumberger back in the early 90s. We knew before pulling the guns to surface if we had a partial shot or not, very seldom one of the shaped charges would come to surface without warning, but as good practice the rig floor was always cleared, drill crews shouldn’t be seeing the guns at the rig floor until the firing head was removed. 

CSTS on the other hand are more risky and often some of the core samplers would come back unfired but not live 

Backoffs are inevitable the more riskier jobs done as it’s a very crude hammer with primer cord and a detonator.

The riskiest part of any of these jobs is putting it in the hole, and getting it off the deck, all good until you connect the PEH.

Partial fires are very rare and don’t come to the rig floor as a surprise, the logging units even in them days recorded everything and any company man worth his salt understood such logs.

The logs were evaluated before retrieving.

[James Regan + 1,776]

8 hours ago, Tom Gagnon said:

So let's talk about "low-order guns."  Down-hole explosives are arranged in a pipe, which is lowered down a well by a wire-line crew, and at a certain dept an electric charge is sent down the line to make the explosives go "BOOM!"  Ideally, holes have just been created to allow for gas to enter the well, and later for fracking fluids to be injected in the rock formations just beyond the well casing.  More often that you think, however, there appears merely a bump on the gun (i.e., the pipe full of explosives).  This is called a low-order detonation.  When such a gun comes out of the hole, and wire-line workers spots this sort of thing, they scramble and hide the evidence from "the company man."  Otherwise, they would have to go back to the shop and get a new gun and do it all over again.  This sort of thing has been much more common than what might be assumed, and it is essentially fraud.  The business is unkind, and, really, especially where any aspect of fracking is concerned, a regular fraud.  In about a year, hopefully not more, I'll publish more on this in another venue.  In the meantime, know that your investments are in a dirty (criminal) business.  When you lose everything, don't blame the environmentalist.

This is seems highly suspect, unless your talking about the shale patch where I would even doubt that they would get away with it, if so the the shale industry deserves all the bad news coming its way.

IF TRUE- Why Drill the well then not perf the well correctly for what to save face, this is uniquely American attitude used mainly by Americans in America, it’s called ego and is based around inexperienced personnel doing the job of a pro for half the price.

This rinkdink section of the business has a lot to answer for, the USA were world leaders in the oil industry the shale play has made them to be the current fools and clowns of the Industry, but were talking about land rig mentality, not just a US thing in general Land Rigs are shabby affairs.

[Old-Ruffneck + 1,177]

5 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

In my experience (notice the qualifier) you would never be able to pull mis-fired or partially fired guns out a well without it being noticed. There are simply too many eyes on the guns coming out, strictly for safety reasons, for someone not to notice.

In a normal operation you’d have the roughneck and driller, HSE reps, the toolpusher, the company man and the gun crew.

Furthermore, the pressures to inject would be much higher than expectations.

How do you lay down and hide an unfired or partially fired gun?

Back in late 70's and early 80's wireline service came in after rig is gone, so technically yes I suppose someone could have hid their work but back then the rig(s) I worked on drilled to specified depth and set casings, wellhead and went on to next hole. Vertical is somewhat different and newer tech now allows directional drilling using different methods to release the gas and oil. 

The oil industry has not changed in its thinking of laying ppl off at a whim and don't care if you have house payment or car etc. Your just another asset until times get tight and then your a liability. Been that way since the 20's. In my time 2 down turns and then Reaganomics killed for years. I decided to pursue another career.

[El Nikko + 2,145]

8 minutes ago, Old-Ruffneck said:

The oil industry has not changed in its thinking of laying ppl off at a whim and don't care if you have house payment or car etc. Your just another asset until times get tight and then your a liability. Been that way since the 20's. In my time 2 down turns and then Reaganomics killed for years. I decided to pursue another career.

Absolutely, after the crash of 2008/2009 the very big service company I worked for made their cuts globally but by the time the bean counters had made their decision to lay off around 2000 people the oil prices were already rebounding and we started picking up more work. We were losing people daily and then didn't have enough people to do the work not to mention there was a hiring ban for the rest of the year and any new hires had to be approved at corporate level. Loads of people made a lot of cash by consulting during that time because that was the only way the managers could get people in and of course when the hiring ban was lifted people were all negotiating better day rates because all the service companies were hiring at the same time. In the end I don't think they saved a penny.

[Ian Austin + 131]

17 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

What goes around, comes around.

The players in the shale oil/LTO game never considered the damage they were creating or jobs lost in the international oilfield for the past 5 years, so they should expect zero sympathy now that the LTO plays are doing exactly what everyone not in the game told them would eventually happen.

I have alot of sympathy for the third party services guys and gals. They have been taking a beating from the shale oil players for years.

This is a great comment. Lots of sympathy for the services - they’ve been basically forced into working for the pleasure of serving the E&Ps over the last few years. Little-no profit and now activity is dropping. 

This business has been acting in an unsustainable manner for quite sometime.

I keep wondering when the adults are going to stand up and right the ship, but I fear the adults have left the room

[El Nikko + 2,145]

Well the shale boom wouldn't have happened if the likes of OPEC etc weren't playing games with prices. Who caused the oil prices to go so high that any idiot with a few million could 'invest' in the shale market?

As shale plays mature it will become less of a boom business with idiot investors and go back to experts and specialists (I think we're already there) and there are some smart people who will make money still by being efficient. Long term US production could easily stall and the next ramp could be much much slower.

People in the shale industry don't or at least shouldn't enjoy the booms, it's always followed shortly with a lot of pain.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

The rock is the rock. It is tight and it doesn’t want to flow. You can frac until your head caves in, and that creates some artificially induced permeability (actually, a whack of artificially induced permeability), but the fact is, the native rock surrounding that fracture is still TIGHT (low permeability/high resistance to flow).

Many, many outfits have tried many, many techniques and processes, and not one has managed to effect the permeability of the rock which eventually feeds the fracture, which eventually feeds the wellbore.

That’s it in a nutshell folks.

[DanilKa + 443]

On 10/11/2019 at 4:14 PM, PE Scott said:

The business is unkind, and, really, especially where any aspect of fracking is concerned, a regular fraud. 

Only fraud here is what you trying to pass as something really happening in the field. There are people with tens of years of experience on this forum - go peddle BS elsewhere, pls. 

In multistage fracturing (that’s how you spell it) there are several clusters perforated per stage - even if one gun misfired, it’s no drama. And it would rarely go unnoticed due to safety concerns.