Patterson-UTI

The US-based drilling contractor is buying the drilling technology company just three weeks after announcing a merger with NexTier Oilfield Solutions.

The US-based drilling contractor and well completions company will combine to form the second-biggest service company in North America.

Drillers are feeling good about higher oil prices, but only to a point.

Criterion Energy Partners' immediate focus is to deliver direct heat and power to industrial customers in the Texas Gulf Coast region.

Leaders from two large US onshore rig contractors said their expectations that the rig-count slide would hit a second-quarter bottom were off and are now refraining from making new predictions as to when it will end.

Regulators say the blowout that killed five workers on a Patterson-UTI rig in Oklahoma was the product of a slow-moving series of missed signals, misleading testing, and miscalculations that failed to control a natural gas influx.

The recent upswing in M&As in the oilfield services sector may be a harbinger of more to come as operators push for capex and opex control.