New orders for land rig building continue even amid the recent drop in oil prices, and analysts and drillers insist that industry’s appetite for new state-of-the-art drilling units has not been slaked. Big land drillers Patterson-UTI and Nabors said during respective third-quarter earnings calls this week that they have each contracted several newbuild rigs in the past three months. Patterson inked deals for seven of its trademark APEX rigs and Nabors for three of its new PACE-X brand rigs for US work in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale of Louisiana/Mississippi. The Tuscaloosa is an emerging but fast-developing play where industry continues to work out early-stage problems relating to the depth, pressure and optimal drilling zones of the reservoir. Not only are drillers still inking deals with upstream operators for newbuild rigs, particularly for US use, but customers […]