Modeling

Oilfield services activity in North America’s onshore and offshore from January through March is lower than Schlumberger Ltd. anticipated, according to CEO Paal Kibsgaard, who spoke Tuesday at the Howard Weil 41st Annual Energy Conference in New Orleans.

A group of North American exploration and production (E&P) companies, which traditionally have mirrored the overall U.S. natural gas output trajectory directionally, is guiding toward an output decline this year, with the large caps forecasting the biggest drop, according to a review by Barclays Capital.

Object Reservoir Inc., a services company providing complex reservoir modeling in unconventional gas plays, is rapidly expanding its Collaborative Exploitation Project (CEP) for the Marcellus Shale in northeast Pennsylvania and is looking into starting up a similar effort in the southwestern part of the state.

Several wholesale energy companies have “greatly improved” their collateral management and ability to model changes in liquidity requirements as compared to how they approached such issues six months to a year ago, Fitch analyst Ellen Lapson said in a conference call last week.