Nabors Industries (NYSE: NBR) held its Q2 conference call today; excerpts from the Q & A are below:
Q: Tony, you mentioned that your latest survey has another 30 to 40 rigs being added to the rest of this year. And I would tell you, consensus from most investors that I’ve spoken with, is that we’re going to see a meaningful fall off in the Permian, maybe as much as 75 rigs. And so, overall, U.S. rig count is going to suffer modestly. So, this is a very different opinion. Obviously, I assume you’re closer to the customer than most of my – investors I’ve talked to. Give us more color on these rigs. Or are we going to see a decline in the Permian, or does the Permian stay flat and you add in the Eagle Ford and other areas? Just help us understand where that’s going.
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony G. Petrello: Sure. I hate to be the guy in the outlier here. So that’s the reason why we did these surveys because this information doesn’t come from me, it comes from the customers and that’s what the customers told us. Now, I know it runs a little counter to the major concern regarding the differentials in West Texas. So, that led us to go back and we just did this past 48 hours.
We went back to the top 20 operators in the Permian, and we asked them specifically about their limitation for pipeline access. And while our information may not be perfect, it suggested that only 2 of