NOV’s Offshore Exposure Should Drive Long-Term Growth, but Producer Efficiencies Pose Headwinds

NOV is a large, diversified oilfield services supplier with leading market positions in rig equipment, solids control services, and downhole tools, among others. But since the peak of the US shale revolution until the present, the company has undergone a period of meaningful value destruction, only starting to turn around this slide in the early 2020s with cost rationalization initiatives. The lean return years have been due to a meaningful fall in global rig count due to rising producer efficiencies that has hurt NOV’s core business. NOV will still have to contend with these issues amid OPEC+’s decision to keep the market well supplied with oil in 2025 and the related fallout.