Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

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James, FYI - I recently saw an analysis of land drillers with stacked iron, I thought it was a Raymond James piece but I cannot find it now.

edit - Found it, posted it to you on July 13. Its the second link. Here it is again :

http://beacon1.rjf.com/researchpdf/iEne071204b_0811.pdf

From memory, it showed NBR and PTEN were the only drillers with additional rigs availible to add. Everyone else was near capacity.

edit : Who has the Deepest Bullpen?
As the market continues to tighten, signs of constraint are beginning to show in the form of higher day rates,
longer lead times, and possibly the first glimmers of labor shortages. The five largest public land drillers will
be the only operators with any additional capacity left to be deployed, with the majority of that capacity lying
in the hands of the two largest land drillers.
This is particularly noticeable in
the adjacent chart, as active
utilization levels (number of
active rigs vs. rigs currently
marketed) are up substantially
relative to the same period last
year for the top five land drillers.
However, as displayed, both
Nabors Industries and
Patterson-UTI are positioned
with the most utilization upside
given their excess capacity. In
absolute terms, Nabors has
worked approximately 280-300
rigs over the past three years,
therefore leaving them with
approximately 80 rigs that can
be deployed into the
marketplace with minimal investment. Likewise, Patterson-UTI has worked a little over 300 rigs over the
same time frame, leaving them with 80-90 rigs capable of being put into the fold in short order. To a lesser
extent, Grey Wolf (GW/$4.23/Strong Buy) with an overall fleet of 127 rigs is almost working near full capacity
of marketed rigs and could deploy a few more additional rigs if necessary. At the end of the day, the
meaningful excess capacity lies in the hands of the two largest public land drillers, Patterson-UTI and
Nabors. It is these two players that have the deepest bullpens and will ultimately dictate overall utilization,
while supporting pricing increases.