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U.S. frac activity is recovering, but not every operator is following the same trajectory. Some are expanding aggressively, while others are reshaping their portfolios or concentrating activity in selected basins.
The Frac Spread Count rose by 8 to 195 and the U.S. rig count reached 599, while crude production is expected to average a record 13.8 million bpd in 2026.
The Frac Spread Count rose by 3 this week to 187. That is well above the 167 recorded before the Iran conflict began, though below July's peak of 205.
Surfactants are suddenly everywhere on earnings calls, mentioned more this year than in the last two decades combined, and Chevron is racing to roll them out across the Permian.
Frac Spread Count came in at 180, down four for the week but up 18 from a year ago, while the rig count held at 588.
Frac activity softened this week, with FSC at 184 and FJC dropping too. Permian laterals have stretched from roughly 6,150 feet in 2015 to nearly 10,900 feet in 2025, concentrating more stages, fluid and chemical demand into each well.
Refracturing is becoming one of the more interesting shifts in shale. One basin is emerging as the clear center of activity, while several major producing regions remain surprisingly quiet.
Frac activity is moving, but are the headline numbers hiding the real story at the basin level?
Record profits at Chevron and Halliburton. A war still keeping oil prices elevated. So why did the Frac Spread Count just slip to 194?
We know elevated crude prices spark frac activity—but how long does that lift actually stick around, and does it ever translate into real barrels of production?
Frac spreads slipped 4 WoW to 196. Rigs climbed 7 in the same week.
Shale is supposed to be plateauing, as per many, so why did EIA just revise Q2 production up again?
Frac spread count hit 205 this week. Rigs, spreads, and jobs all climbed together but is that really a fleet rebuild, or just noise?
The Frac Spread Count climbed from 192 to 200, but the bigger signal may be where that strength is coming from.
Specially for our enterprise subscribers, this week’s Monday Macro View asks: why is Appalachia running one of its most sustained completion programs in years while the market watches Iran and the Permian?
What if the Gulf’s “missing barrels” do not return as quickly as markets think?
In this week’s Monday Macro View, we explore whether the U.S. economy is truly insulated from another oil supply shock.
At 192, the latest Frac Spread Count raises a bigger question than the headline suggests: where is activity actually strengthening, and where is it quietly rotating away?
The FSC and FJC continues to register an upward movement.
The EIA recently confirmed that U.S. total energy production reached 107 quadrillion BTUs in 2025, a 3.4% increase over 2024 and the fourth consecutive annual record.
This week FSC once again rose by 5 to 179. FJC gained as well.
FSC rose 5 to 174, FJC also gained, and now sits higher above its year-ago level. But we are also witnessing something deeper.
The latest Primary Vision data confirms what the broader directional trend was already suggesting: last week's modest pullback in completion activity was a data point, not a pattern.
Every economic indicator from this week's calendar was recorded while uncertainty hovered over the direction the war would take.
The Frac Spread Count continued its expansion with the latest number at 171 registering a gain of 5 on a WoW basis.
The Frac Spread Count came in at 166, up 7 on the week. What matters most in the near term is the directional shift.
Dallas Fed Energy survey just confirmed what Primary Vision’s data have been saying from past few months.
The Richmond and KC Fed indices bouncing back from deeply negative readings look better than they are — both series mean-revert aggressively and carry almost no predictive weight for the next quarter. What actually deserves attention is the productivity-labour cost squeeze. Germany at 51.7 on manufacturing — beating a sub-50 consensus — is the week's most consequential European print, not because it resolves anything but because it pushes back the recession narrative by another month. Spain growing at 2.7% year-on-year reinforces what has been true for several quarters. China's data this week is too thin to draw a cycle conclusion, but the profit surge without a corresponding PMI beat is a classic late-cycle signal
Oil prices continue to increase. But how are basins behaving as a result? Do we see more activity in the Permian? What about those heavily weighted toward natural gas production?
Frac Spread Count jumped by 2 and now stands at 172. Frac Job Count is also up. Both indicators have stayed on a recovery path since end of February.
$30 up and $30 down - this has been one of the wildest swings in the history of oil markets.
Oil prices are surging but will operators actually drill more? Our analysis shows that duration matters far more than price magnitude for triggering an activity response.
FSC added 7 spreads week-over-week; FJC jumped as well. But here's the number that matters: early 2026 momentum is running at 2.6% versus just 1.0% last year more than double the pace.
FSC is up by 8 and FJC registered double digit gains.
The U.S. shale peak narrative is back. In 2015–2016, similar data prompted identical conclusions, only for production to later exceed prior highs.
U.S. frac activity recorded one of its sharpest weekly declines in recent months, with both frac spreads and job counts falling by 15 week over week.
Frac spreads and jobs moved higher again, narrowing the year-on-year gap.
China’s latest national accounts were released against a backdrop of heightened scrutiny, as the economy once again delivered growth in line with official objectives. Full-year GDP expanded by 5.0 percent year on year, while fourth-quarter growth moderated to 4.5 percent. In this article we are going to evaluate the source of these indicators of growth and how it is currently being generated and where pressure is being absorbed.
The Frac Spread Count rose to 160. Frac job activity has now returned to where it stood this time last year, once again reinforcing the theme of resiliency in U.S. Shale.
This week’s Monday Macro View shows that the recent dip in completions was largely seasonal rather than structural, with Frac Spread Count rising by 3 spreads week over week and Frac Job Count also registering a decent increase.
Welcome to the first newsletter of 2026. Monday Macro View opens the year in a controlled range. Frac Spread Count came in at 153, down one week over week, while Frac Job Count eased extending a late-2025 pattern.
This is the last newsletter of 2025, and it offers some clear insights into what we learned from shale this year.
This week’s newsletter comes absolutely packed and if you’ve been following the market closely, you’re going to love it. From horsepower-driven shifts in U.S. shale to Europe’s quiet growth problem
In this week’s Monday Macro View, the latest field data shows U.S. shale maintaining record-high September output at 13.844 mb/d, outperforming the November STEO by 59 kb/d.
In this week’s Monday Macro View, we start with a brief but necessary clarification of what last week’s activity data actually tells us.
This week’s Monday Macro View further cemented the strength that the U.S. shale industry has shown even as oil prices continue to fall.
This week’s Monday Macro View answers something that no one is talking about.
The week’s Monday Macro View focused on the latest EIA data that claims that the base decline rate of horizontal wells keeps steepening, forcing operators to drill more just to hold production steady.
In this week’s Monday Macro View we decode our latest weekly report along with other important developments. U.S. completion activity remains remarkably steady, with the Frac Spread Count hovering around 175 for the past month.
Everyone talks about “breakevens” in oil but almost no one agrees on what the word actually means. Is it $15, $60, or $90 a barrel? The truth is, all those numbers can be right and completely different. In this first part of our series, we strip the term down to its fundamentals and reveal why “breakeven” has become one of the most misunderstood ideas in global energy markets. Before diving into the spreadsheets and investor decks, it’s time to ask a simple but powerful question: what does breakeven really mean — and why does it matter now more than ever?