Replies to post #5446 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

my crystal ball says CLB is a bit over-valued and the others are about right. If i could buy oil companies, i'd rather buy them.

there's been quite a bit of poaching of service company folk by exploration and production companies over the past year or so. There's a significant salary differential which the service companies don't seem to be inclined to fight. I suspect this will hurt companies like CLB more than tool developers. SLB, BHI and the larger production companies are also acquiring, expanding, or setting up their own core and fluid analysis labs versus farming work out to CLB. Whether they will be successful in being competitive/superior to CLB is the million dollar question.