Halliburton Co., the No. 1 fracture specialist in North America, expects to see “progressive improvement” into the new year as the market tightens from more well completions and less drilling in the Lower 48.

Regarding the outlook, “2021 feels better from here,” CEO Jeff Miller said during a conference call early Monday to discuss third quarter performance. With the second half of 2020 considered “the bottom, we see progressive improvement in 2021.”

Still, don’t expect the coming year to be a whiz bang turnaround, Miller warned.

“2021 will be slightly down from 2020 in terms of overall growth,” he said, with a stronger second half. From there on, “I think it feels better from there and we see sequential recovery.”

The mighty North America has been...