This week I wrote oilfield posts about rig counts, wages, and AI.

At Foundations of Energy (FOE), I explored the Statistical Review of World Energy.

My first oilfield post was about the now three-month long decline in US rig counts.

My second post was about US oilfield wages still being below their highs from late 2019 and early 2020.

My third post was about Dallas Fed Energy Survey results showing spotty AI adoption across the US oilfield.

FOE is my paid Substack newsletter that I’ve designed as a learning and development resource for energy professionals.

This week I launched a series where I’m diving into the recently released Statistical Review of World Energy (SROWE) from the Energy Institute.

My first FOE post this week was about the structure of the SROWE – what it is, what’s in it, and how we can talk about it.

My second FOE post was a survey of the global hydrocarbon consumption landscape.

We explored which countries use the most oil, natural gas, and coal, and in which countries fossil fuel demand is growing the fastest.

Next week I’ll do a similar SROWE-based survey of renewables and nuclear.

You can find Foundations of Energy right here:

https://foundationsofenergy.substack....



I summarize all this work in this video.

Each weekend, I send out a free weekly newsletter I call The Business of Energy.

It includes links to, and summaries of, all the research I publish online.

I also include an energy-related anecdote, insight, or observation that I don’t share anywhere else. That way, even if you’ve seen all the stuff I’ve published online, you’ll still have something new to read in the newsletter.

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US drilling rig counts have declined for three straight months

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We’ve seen the US drilling rig count slide downward over the past 3 months.

This is the second step back we’ve taken since the post-pandemic recovery in activity that ended in late 2022.

In this post, I write about where these rig count declines are concentrated, and what that means for activity in the near to medium term.



Wages across the US oilfield are still below their inflation-adjusted peaks

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US oilfield wages hit their inflation-adjusted peaks in late 2019 and early 2020.

Since then, E&P wages have collapsed.

OFS wages haven’t fallen as much as on the E&P side, but both have still yet to catch up to all the inflation that’s struck over the past couple of years.

It’s consistent with the pictures we’ve discussed of historically low employment intensity in this space.



AI adoption across the US oilfield is spotty

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We got the newest results from the quarterly Dallas Fed Energy Survey this week.

They asked about AI adoption in the oilfield.

We see that half of E&P and OFS companies that responded to the survey have not adopted AI, and do not plan to adopt it over the next 12 months.

I write about this emerging disparity, and what it could mean for performance across the sector.