The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

I know at least 5 ex-corelab guys and none of them left CLB to go to oil companies outside the US (most of them were at CHK). It probably happens but I don't have the exposure to know. Most of exCLB folks I know left after 2010 so I don't think their leaving was related to the market dump in 2008-9. One of them was fired by CLB (he is a complete idiot but he somehow managed to land at CHK). Another is a horrible manager. The others are now elsewhere. I never heard any of the exCLB guys say anything really disparaging about CLB but I got whiffs of what sounded like a counter-productive internal business structure (different locations effectively bidding against each other).

While I have no reason to doubt the comment about 85% of revenue(?) coming from international oil fields, if a good chunk of that comes from middle-eastern NOCs, then I could see some damage to CLB's gross because those NOCs like to spread the work around so nobody knows too much. With more competitors to CLB, there are more folks to whom the wealth is spread; quality and consistency are not always paramount. As an example I know of one ME NOC that was considering having some of their core work done at CHK (I don't know if it materialized). CHK doesn't have the competency nor capacity to take on CLB but sometimes it takes clients a while to figure out their mistakes.