Jul 4, 2017 Bloomberg

Thursday, January 25, 2018

---

General Electric Co.’s new oilfield services behemoth is poised to capitalize on a recovery from the worst crude crash in a generation — except no one is sure when that will actually happen. The merger of GE’s oil and gas business with Baker Hughes Inc. officially closed Monday, creating a provider of services and equipment that’s second in size only to Schlumberger Ltd. While Lorenzo Simonelli, the GE (IW 500/6) oil executive who will lead the new Baker Hughes, says his company carries built-in advantages over its rivals, the launch comes at a time of growing risks and uncertainty in the oil market at large. Shale explorers have been leading a fresh drilling boom, boosting budgets 10 times faster in the U.S. than the rest of the world. Whether that growth continues, though, is far from certain. After almost six months of growth, the number of rigs targeting oil fell last week and production declined. That hints at growing caution among producers for next year.