Off The Net For Awhile; Going Swimming -- July 25, 2022

Sunscreen: Trader Joe's $9 sunscreen all the rage, vs Supergoop's popular Unseen sunscreen at $36.

Saudi skyscraper: to be 1600 feet tall (80 stories?) and 75 miles long (no typo), two mirrored walls in the desert.

Services, oilfield: oil does not have to boom for these companies to thrive. Will make money even if oil goes to $40.

Notably, Halliburton’s operating margins—excluding charges related to its Russia exit—reached 14.2% in the second quarter, a milestone not seen since the peak of the fracking frenzy of 2014. Schlumberger’s latest quarterly operating margin of 17.1% was its highest since 2015.  

Drilling activity still isn’t what it used to be. Baker Hughes data shows that there are 23% fewer oil rigs in North America today than there were three years ago and 58% fewer compared with 2014. While oil-field service revenues are nowhere near their peak eight years ago, many years of belt-tightening and efficiency-finding has meant the businesses are able to eke out more profit on less drilling activity.  

That, and continued supply chain bottlenecks, are adding up to a lot of pricing power. Halliburton Chief Executive Jeff Miller repeatedly said on the company’s earnings call on Tuesday that the company’s equipment is “all but sold out” in the North American market for this year. The company has started talking to customers about purchases in 2023, which already looks like a tight year for equipment, according to Mr. Miller.

Sayonara: Baker Hughes has suspended all equipment and services contracts on Russian LNG projects. Link here. 

Severe: gap between gasoline prices in US and EU. Link here.