Author Archives: investmentpedia

Petrobras cancels rigs 11-28-12

Petrobras has cancelled a process to contract five new ultra deep-water drilling rigs, due to the pre-salt’s strong resource quality, which means fewer wells are required. The company cited higher well productivity in the pre-salt Santos basin as a reason for the cancellation. Higher well productivity will require fewer wells overall. The rigs, which were […]

Onshore and Offshore Permits

Onshore Permits All major states require the filing of a drilling permit before the drilling of a well. The filing for the permit is usually one of the last steps taken before drilling. Before the permit is filed for, companies incur significant expenses, including land costs, legal fees, and geological expenses, and, at that time, […]

History and Maturity of Russian Onshore Production

Bernstein note 10-12 The mechanics of onshore production are fundamentally different from offshore production. The largest 25 fields off Norway today were developed with 110 total wells per field on average; the largest 25 fields in the Gulf of Mexico were developed with 30 wells on average; while typical Russian fields of the same size (in kbpd) required […]

Rig Counts vs. Completions – an Important Distinction 10/30/12

However, when pressure pumping capacity can’t keep up with the rig count, as was generally the case in 2010, there exists a lag between drilling and completions. This lag is usually around a quarter, simply due to logistical issues of moving both the rig and completion equipment. However, in the Haynesville, the backlog expanded to […]

Natural Gas Shale Map

Airlines Overview

Industry background Prior to October 24, 1978, the airline industry was heavily regulated by the government which caused limited price competition and new entrants. After deregulation, start-up airlines with low fares began to take market share from legacy airlines. There are two business models: Hub and spoke, which is used by legacy airlines (UAL, DAL, […]

HDD industry

Industry Overview Hard disk drives (HDD) are electro-mechanical storage devices that use rotating magnetic media to store and retrieve electronic data. They were first developed by IBM in 1956 for the IBM 360 computer as the primary means to store large amounts of data. HDDs are now used in PCs, servers, external storage arrays and […]

Coal Industry

History of Coal During the 1980s, global diversified mining companies, domestic steel companies, electric utilities, and integrated oil companies controlled coal mining assets. Corporate strategies were around maximizing volumes, and gaining market share. Electric utilities, the primary customers, had considerable pricing power over the coal producers. Many competitors exited the industry through consolidation or bankruptcy. […]