Wonder if they destroyed these documents too....
Antitrust Probe Targets Halliburton’s Fracking Business
By David Wethe - Jul 26, 2013 3:08 AM ET
A federal antitrust probe into the $36 billion hydraulic fracturing market is increasing pressure on oilfield-service companies already reeling as skyrocketing competition cuts into their profit margins.
Halliburton Co. (HAL) and Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) said this week the U.S. Justice Department is seeking documents for an antitrust investigation related to pressure-pumping services, which include hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Stephen Harris, a spokesman for Schlumberger Ltd. (SLB), the world’s largest oilfield-services company, declined to say whether it has been contacted by investigators.
The investigation was met with widespread surprise among industry analysts and investors because it comes at a time when rising competition and falling prices have been the business’s biggest problem.
“It’s a big industry, it has lots of competition, and right now the price of a frack job is as cheap as its been in the last three years,” said Richard Spears, vice president of Spears & Associates, an industry consultant in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I can’t speculate what they’d be looking for or what they would find.”
Companies providing fracking services have seen some of the industry’s biggest profit gains followed by the steepest declines as a flood of new business from the
U.S. shale boom brought rivals rushing in.
News of the investigation drew attention both to land-based fracking, where more than 50 service companies currently are vying for orders in the U.S., and to offshore fracking, where Baker Hughes and Halliburton provide the bulk of service in the Gulf of Mexico.
more:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-25/antitrust-probe-targets-halliburton-s-fracking-business.html
DO SOMETHING!
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