Oilfield Services Firms Sound the Alarm: Shale Spending Slows

Oil companies are growing increasingly cautious on spending on production growth amid concerns about an oversupplied market and oil prices lower than at last year’s levels. That’s one of the messages from SLB, the world’s biggest oilfield services provider, which flagged continued softness in the short-cycle market, especially in U.S. shale, in its Q3 results release. Offshore and other long-cycle spending, which tends to be more resilient to oil price fluctuations, remains relatively strong. But U.S. activity and spending are…