United States Completion Equipment and Services Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The United States completion equipment and services market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 2% over the period of 2020-2025. Factors such as increasing production from conventional and unconventional resources and reducing maintenance costs of the well are expected to drive the market. However, volatility in the crude oil and natural gas prices leading to decreasing exploration and production activities may restrain the growth of the market.

Key Highlights

• Shale oil and gas production is expected to drive the market in the forecast period. The complexity of production and multilateral drilling and production from the well requires high quality of well completion and its services, which is expected to aid the market.
• New development in the intelligent well completion technology, like the advancements in the high-end self-adaptive inflow control completion technology, is expected to make the oil and gas production more viable and may provide an opportunity for market players.
• Crude oil and natural gas production are expected to continue to be a vital part of meeting global energy demand, and the offshore segment is expected to witness significant growth in the forecast period. Increasing advancements in technologies are expected to aid the growth of the segment.

Key Market Trends

Shale Oil and Gas Production to Drive the Market

• The United States was the largest producer of crude oil in the world, in 2019. It is also among the largest user of well completion techniques, which, among others, are used in the economically viable recovery of unconventional sources of hydrocarbons in the country’s shale plays. This is because shale oil and gas reservoirs are more complex to handle and tend to mature faster than conventional wells. Therefore, unconventional reservoirs require higher usage of well completion tools and services to produce the oil.
• Shale gas production in the United States is estimated by the Energy Information Administration to be around 69.19 billion cubic feet, in 2019. The production is expected to increase further in the forecast period and aid the growth of the United States completion equipment and services market.
• Using advanced approaches like increasing treatment sizes, the move away from crosslinked gels to slickwater fracks, and increasing proppant intensity as the primary drivers behind enhanced well completions. Advancement in the technology for shale oil and gas reservoir is expected to grow the production and aid the completion equipment and services market.
• The maximum gas recovery factor from shale gas reservoirs is low compared with conventional reservoirs. Therefore, more wells are required to be drilled to produce an equal amount of oil in a time period. Moreover, Continued innovation in the well completion stages is expected to make the equipment more reliable, thereby increasing the usage of well completion methods like gravel packers over acidization.
• Shale oil and gas are expected to drive the market in the forecast period due to an increase in production, advancements in technologies, and high efficiency in aiding the production of oil and gas.

Offshore Segment to Witness Significant Growth

• In the offshore segment, where the well intervention is expensive and high-risk, well completions equipment and services have proven their value in managing production from multilateral wells, horizontal wells with multiple zones, wells in heterogeneous reservoirs, and mature reservoirs. Further advancements in the technologies are expected to aid the growth of the market.
• The completion equipment improvements have incorporated new paradigms in the sector like intelligent or smart well completion. Intelligent completions include permanent downhole sensors that transmit data to surface for local or remote monitoring in a digital well platform. All these data may or may not be automated but deliver to increase the production of the well. These systems are being used in the offshore segment as a method to decrease the production of water from the wells.
• In 2019, Emerson, in partnership with Metrol, a leader in battery-powered wireless well monitoring, has launched the Intelligent Multistage Completion Network and integrated upper and lower completions downhole solution that communicates wirelessly with instruments at the reservoir sand face, the physical interface between the formation and the wellbore. This is enabled by a new wireless interface that generates crucial zonal flow information and sand face monitoring in the lower completion. Further advancements in the market are expected to create more reliability and growth in the market.
• Offshore accounted for 4.33% of the total number of rotary rigs in the United States. Increasing prospects in the Gulf of Mexico due to the growing number of natural gas infrastructure projects and the ever-increasing demand for natural gas in the country are expected to aid the growth of the offshore segment.
• Chevron and Total have sanctioned the Anchor project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The Anchor project is the industry’s first deepwater high-pressure development to achieve a final investment decision (FID). Advancement of the new technology in well completion and production, which is capable of handling pressures of 20,000 psi, enables access to other high-pressure resource opportunities across the Gulf of Mexico, thereby attributing to the growth of the market.
• Hence, the offshore segment is expected to be the fastest-growing segment in the forecast period due to an increase in free cash flow, advancement in technology, and an increase in oil production.

Competitive Landscape

The United States completion equipment and services market is moderately fragmented. Some of the key players in this market are Schlumberger Ltd., Halliburton Company, Baker Hughes Company Weatherford International plc, and National-Oilwell Varco Inc.

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