Oilfield Layoffs

[dieseltech09]

Saw on the news that Range Resources is shutting down their OKC office. About 100 people being let go.
UE Manufacturing had a big layoff last week. Cut a lot of senior level employees.

 

[dennishoddy]

Yea there is a lot of fear mongering in the financial articles as of late. 6 months ago they were all predicting that $90/bbl oil would hold for the next 10 years.

Yep never buy on recommendations of financial reports. 4 months ago all the analysts were saying Schlumberger would be at $170 per share by now.

They are languishing at the mid $80 per share as we speak.

 

[1krr]

Yep never buy on recommendations of financial reports. 4 months ago all the analysts were saying Schlumberger would be at $170 per share by now.

They are languishing at the mid $80 per share as we speak.

Exactly.. Takes a bit of fiscal flexibility (or balls) to buy into oil right now but I think if you've got the cash to risk, a well thought o/g sector purchase right now is feeling good. I can't see any technicals driving speculation down and I don't see pricing going too much lower before the Saudi's start talking about tightening the taps. Wildcard here is what comes of the Ukraine/Russia thing. Media hyped stuff like the union walkouts at a couple US refineries or ISIS blocking .07bbl/day will have some short term movements but if you can buy in and stretch some potential pain for a year, I think you will be looking at a pay day mid term on o/g stock.

 

[Jestik]

On the flip side, I work for a Land Surveyor who occasionally does pipeline work for large companies, and we've not had anything come across our desk oil/pipeline wise since Hogshooter, Coldwater, and Mississippian back in 2012.

Also, power line construction has slowed down a lot as well as companies have moved into NERC compliance.

 

[ronny]

On the other hand, gasoline keeps climbing it's way out of the hole; $0.10 today.

 

[Shadowrider]

On the other hand, gasoline keeps climbing it's way out of the hole; $0.10 today.

Yep and the price of oil has apparently started up from it's bottom. Summer driving season is coming quick too.

 

[rlongnt]

WPX Energy Inc. said Monday it will lay off about 83 employees companywide, shrinking its workforce by 8 percent, and slash its Denver employee count 90 percent as low commodity prices continue to hammer energy companies nationwide.

WPX (NYSE: WPX), based in Tulsa, had about 1,050 employees prior to Monday, the layoffs will take the count down to about 900.

 

[CHenry]

http://news.yahoo.com/us-running-room-store-oil-price-collapse-next-171025276--finance.html

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. has so much crude that it is running out of places to put it, and that could drive oil and gasoline prices even lower in the coming months.

If this keeps up, storage tanks could approach their operational limits, known in the industry as "tank tops," by mid-April and send the price of crude — and probably gasoline, too — plummeting.

"The fact of the matter is we are running out of storage capacity in the U.S.," Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Citibank, said at a recent symposium at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Morse has suggested oil could fall all the way to $20 a barrel from the current $50. At that rock-bottom price, oil companies, faced with mounting losses, would stop pumping oil until the glut eased. Gasoline prices would fall along with crude, though lower refinery production, because of seasonal factors and unexpected outages, could prevent a sharp decline.

The national average price of gasoline is $2.44 a gallon. That's $1.02 cheaper than last year at this time, but up 37 cents over the past month.

View galleryGraphic compares current U.S. crude oil stocks to past …
Graphic compares current U.S. crude oil stocks to past five years; 2c x 3 inches; 96.3 mm x 76 mm;
Other analysts agree that crude is poised to fall sharply — if not all the way to $20 — because it continues to flood into storage for a number of reasons:

— U.S. oil production continues to rise. Companies are cutting back on new drilling, but that won't reduce supplies until later this year.

— The new oil being produced is light, sweet crude, which is a type many U.S. refineries are not designed to process. Oil companies can't just get rid of it by sending it abroad, because crude exports are restricted by federal law.

— Foreign oil continues to flow into the U.S., both because of economic weakness in other countries and to feed refineries designed to process heavy, sour crude.

— This is the slowest time of year for gasoline demand, so refiners typically reduce or stop production to perform maintenance. As refiners process less crude, supplies build up.

View galleryThis March 13, 2012 photo shows the manifolds that …
This March 13, 2012 photo shows the manifolds that regulate the input and output of oil to the White …
— Oil investors are making money buying and storing oil because of the difference between the current price of oil and the price for delivery in far-off months. An investor can buy oil at $50 today and enter into a contract to sell it for $59 in December, locking in a profit even after paying for storage during those months.

The delivery point for most of the oil traded in the U.S. is Cushing, a city of about 8,000 people halfway between Oklahoma City and Tulsa at an intersection of several pipelines. The city is dotted with tanks that can, in theory, hold 85 million barrels of oil, according to the Energy Department, though some of those tanks are used for blending or feeding pipelines, not for storing oil.

The market data provider Genscape, which flies helicopters equipped with infrared cameras and other technology over Cushing twice a week to measure storage levels, estimates Cushing is two-thirds full.

Hillary Stevenson, who manages storage, pipeline and refinery monitoring for Genscape, says Cushing could be full by mid-April. Supplies are increasing at "the highest rate we have ever seen at Cushing," she says.

Full tanks — or super-low prices — are not a sure thing. New storage is under construction at Cushing, and there are large storage terminals near Houston, in St. James, Louisiana, and elsewhere around the country that will probably begin to take in more oil as prices fall far enough to cover the cost of transporting the oil.

View galleryThis Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012 photo shows a marker declaring …
This Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012 photo shows a marker declaring Cushing, Okla. as the "pipeline cro …
Also, drillers are cutting back fast because oil prices have plummeted from $107 a barrel in June. And demand is showing signs of rising.

While the Energy Department reported another enormous rise in crude stocks last week, up 8.4 million barrels from the week earlier, it also reported that diesel and gasoline supplies fell more than expected. That leads some to conclude that demand for crude will soon pick up, easing the surplus somewhat.

But many analysts believe oil prices will fall through the spring, before summer drivers start to relieve the glut.

 

[SoonerP226]

That's interesting. They've been talking about the glut in Cushing for the better part of a decade. I gathered that there was a lot more pipeline capacity feeding into Cushing from the north and west than there is feeding from Cushing to the Gulf, and the Keystone pipeline was supposed to help alleviate this...

 

[SMS]

That's interesting. They've been talking about the glut in Cushing for the better part of a decade. I gathered that there was a lot more pipeline capacity feeding into Cushing from the north and west than there is feeding from Cushing to the Gulf, and the Keystone pipeline was supposed to help alleviate this...

It looks to me like Keystone (at least XL) wasn't supposed to alleviate that…it looks like it's bringing another leg inbound not out to the gulf?

Is the "Houston Lateral" part of the vetoed legislation?