Very positive tonality from the Big HALHouston-based Halliburton, the oil field service company with the largest US fleet of hydraulic fracturing equipment, posted a 70% boost in profit in the third quarter, the company reported Monday.
Much of the rise in profits came from its North American division and its post-drilling oil well completion business, but Halliburton chief executiveDave Lesar acknowledged that problems getting sand to Us fracturing sites caused the company and its rivals to “miss some jobs.” He said that prompted Halliburton to take some extra steps.
Miller said Halliburton more than doubled its sand-storage capacity at shale play terminal, got on track to double its rail car fleet to haul sand from northern mines, and has cut 30 new deals with suppliers so far this year. Halliburton, Miller said, also recently started up a sand-logistics command center in Houston to monitor sand supply levels in US basins and track its rail and trucking fleets in real time.
Sliding oil prices have loomed large over the US shale bonanza in recent months, but Miller said Halliburton doesn’t expect any the price decline to affect the long-term outlook of oil company spending, the central income source of oil field service companies.
“Budgets are moving up, not down,” Miller said. “Everything I see looks like it’s increasing in 2015.”
Lesar said tightness in global spare production capacity, production expectations in North American and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and geopolitical impacts in non-OPEC production “suggest these prices are not sustainable.”
“We might be in a slight oversupply situation right now, but demand is still growing,” Lesar said. “We believe that supply and demand will essentially be back in balance in a relatively short period of time.”