What that means for Halliburton and SLB is focusing more on technology and some of their service specialties while retiring some equipment and well completions—or fracking—fleets.
“We’ll clearly stack some fleets just because we’re not going to work at uneconomic levels,” Miller said. “It’s strategic for us, and it takes some equipment out of the market as well. But, from our perspective, working at uneconomic levels literally burns up equipment, creates HSE (health, safety, and environment) risk, and all sorts of things that we just don’t want to do.”
For all of 2025, Halliburton now estimates its North American revenues will decline by more than 10%.
Halliburton reported second-quarter revenues that fell nearly 6% from $5.83 billion to $5.51 billion year over year. Net income plunged 33% from $709 million down to $472 million.
OPEC and its allies have surprised much of the energy industry since this spring by unwinding years of voluntary production cuts more rapidly than anticipated to gain back market share. Dumping those new barrels on a saturated global marketplace Is adding to the weaker oil price environment, leading U.S. oil and gas producers and others to cut back spending and, in many cases, oil and gas volumes.
Adding to the weakness is the oilfield services sector becoming a victim of its own success. Efficiently gains now allow producers to extract more oil and gas per location without requiring as many drilling rigs and fracking fleets.
In fact, the number of drilling rigs active in the U.S. has fallen by 7% in the past 12 months, down to 544 active rigs, according to research firm Enverus, and the decline is expected to continue. Nearly half of all the active rigs are in the still-booming Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.
“As we have seen more recently, the short-cycle markets have been more reactive to the persistent slightly lower commodity price than anticipated,” Le Peuch said. “Yet, all in, we are seeing this as a resilient market going forward.”
