Small and medium-size oil-field-equipment companies attending an energy conference this week in Houston said oil prices need to go much higher before their corner of the industry starts seeing a meaningful recovery. Estimates from a Wall Street Journal survey of 50 equipment companies with exhibition booths at the OTC, or Offshore Technology Conference, showed an average forecast of $63 a barrel as the price that would signal the upturn is taking hold. On Friday, the U.S. benchmark oil price was trading at $45 a barrel . That is 12% higher from the beginning of the year but less than half what it was fetching in mid-2014 when the downturn began. “The oil-producing companies may be able to survive at $50 a barrel, their so-called break-even price,” Melissa Eudy, sales executive at Ruff Equipment, a Magnolia, Texas, firm […]