Tag: services

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Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling

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Yes, it pays to keep customers smiling—even in the midstream.

As midstream activity marches on in North America, customers show preferences for providers with strong operating and project-development skills. Professionalism also matters.

The need for solutions is diverse and widespread. Constraints in West Texas―ground zero of U.S. shale-oil production―crimp output. Natural gas in Appalachia seeks conditioning and outlets. Gulf Coast petrochemical and LNG facilities demand feedstock. Canadian producers beg for market access. Continue reading “Yes, It Pays to Keep Customers Smiling”

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Integrated Oilfield Suppliers Plot Divergent Paths

Integrated Suppliers Plot Different Paths - Featured Image

As the oil and gas sector stirs with a hopeful sense of purpose, several of its largest and most influential suppliers are pursuing distinctly different strategies. It’s not just about which products and services will propel the industry forward. To some extent, the balance of power between providers and customers is at stake.

On one end of the strategic spectrum sit Schlumberger and GE Oil & Gas. With the help of recent acquisitions, both companies hope to meld oilfield equipment and services into a new seamless network, one capable of generating and interpreting streams of data for use in improving performance across all phases of a well. If successful, the impact could be far-reaching. Continue reading “Integrated Oilfield Suppliers Plot Divergent Paths”

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GE Deal Offers Baker Hughes a New Beginning

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GE Oil & Gas and Baker Hughes shocked the oil and gas world with the announcement they will come together to create the industry’s number two supplier. From a financial standpoint, the transaction is effectively an acquisition of Baker Hughes by GE. In practical terms, it’s more like a merger.

Both companies will contribute their respective businesses to a new publicly traded entity (“New” Baker Hughes). GE Oil & Gas will also contribute $7.4 billion in cash, which in turn will go to Baker Hughes shareholders in the form of a one-time dividend. GE will own 62.5% of the new company and run the overall show. Baker Hughes shareholders will own the remaining 37.5% and be represented in the boardroom with four of nine director seats. Continue reading “GE Deal Offers Baker Hughes a New Beginning”

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Schlumberger’s Quiet Moonshot

Schlumberger's Ambitious Moonshot

Schlumberger’s bid for Cameron Int’l is big news in a flinching industry.  The vision behind the deal is ambitious — even a bit brash.  It’s more than just the consolidation of two large oilfield suppliers. The technical aspects of the plan could unleash industry ripples for decades to come.

Cameron’s long-time focus has been on the “heavy iron” used in the oil patch.  Schlumberger hopes to expand on that role by creating fully integrated drilling and production systems around its various products. The idea amounts to an operating system that efficiently manages processes from downhole to delivery.

It’s an alluring concept, one that cuts across much of the upstream Continue reading “Schlumberger’s Quiet Moonshot”

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The Customer Has Spoken: A Decade of Appraisals

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In 2004, EnergyPoint Research first set out to discern which oil and gas equipment suppliers and service providers work best for their customers and to quantify their experiences. A decade of collecting and analyzing the relevant data has established EnergyPoint as the resolute voice of the oilfield consumer and the only curator of independent customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.

EnergyPoint started its surveys with the assumptions that customer focus drives best practices and satisfied customers feed growth. Those facts held steady. And as we culled more industry wisdom from end users, we shared with our readers and subscribers a clearer picture of the critical variables companies can focus upon to create satisfied repeat customers. We also offered insights into how customers can influence the performance of their suppliers. Continue reading “The Customer Has Spoken: A Decade of Appraisals”

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MarkWest, Williams & Sunoco Logistics Garner Midstream Kudos

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As customers in the hotly contested midstream services segment have demanded more reliable operations and deeper product-development capabilities from their suppliers, MarkWest Energy once again has emerged as best-in-class as it captured top honors in EnergyPoint Research’s 2013 Midstream Services Customer Satisfaction Survey. 

The recently announced results cinches back-to-back customer satisfaction victories for MarkWest, which also took first-place overall in EnergyPoint’s midstream survey conducted in 2011. The biennial study, which dates back to 2006, is the leading independently conducted benchmark customer satisfaction study focusing on U.S. midstream service providers.

Continue reading “MarkWest, Williams & Sunoco Logistics Garner Midstream Kudos”

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It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Oilfield

Mad Mad Oilfield

North American shale continues to rewrite the books, and its potential seems destined to spread globally. Simultaneously, new horizons are being forged offshore — from the ultra-deepwater of the world’s great oceans, to the lower-tertiary depths of the Gulf of Mexico, to the vast unknown of the Arctic. And operators are always looking to squeeze more from existing assets everywhere. All the while, the industry’s ingenuity and resolve is being both tested and showcased.

Given the clamorous state of the industry, maybe it’s not surprising EnergyPoint’s customer satisfaction ratings of oilfield service suppliers are, as they say, “all over the board”. After all, no one contends the demands of this brave new world are easily met. They are not. Everything from the far-flung and nomadic nature of today’s operations to the “big-crew change” lurking in the background suggests plenty of challenges. Continue reading “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Oilfield”

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Top-rated Oil & Gas Industry Suppliers

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With so much at stake in today’s oil and gas industry, customers are looking for both measured authenticity and established competence in their oilfield suppliers. The ability of the current group of top-rated suppliers to perform so consistently well in EnergyPoint’s customer satisfaction surveys is a testament to their commitment to, and talent for, providing a superlative customer experience.

Three of the recently finalized 2012 survey’s four main segment leaders are repeat winners — Helmerich & Payne in onshore drilling, Derrick Equipment in oilfield products, and Ensco in offshore drilling. Newpark Resources captured the top overall ranking in the oilfield services segment for the first time.

Continue reading “Top-rated Oil & Gas Industry Suppliers”

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New Tests Challenge Schlumberger

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As a capable giant in the oilfield, Schlumberger’s tentacles of services, manpower and ingenuity stretch into almost every major facet of exploration and production. Yet, from the purview of overall customer satisfaction, the company can appear more like a straw in a haystack.

To be sure, Schlumberger’s customer satisfaction ratings remain quite strong in the area of formation and well evaluation, a demonstration of strength at its core.  In fact, its acoustics-while-drilling and related wireline suite of products and services are considered by some to be must-haves these days.  Its scores are also strong in drill bits, drilling fluids, well testing, rotary steerable systems, deep water applications and international markets. Continue reading “New Tests Challenge Schlumberger”