There seems to be quite some misunderstanding as to what...

There seems to be quite some misunderstanding as to what Halliburton do. Halliburton are not a drilling contractor, they provide specialist subcontract services in support of the drilling operation, i.e. cementing, fraccing, etc.

SSN will hire in a drilling contractor to do the work then Halco will frac the well once complete. The reason for the JV with Halco was:

1. So the delays recently experienced in the Bakken wells due to lack of crews are not experienced.
2. Lateral learning from other frac jobs that Halco are doing for other operators (while they must respect client confidentiality I'm sure that Halco will make some 'suggestions' to SSN.

I would imagine that Halco aren't interested in the conventional targets as they don't have anything to bring to the table, typically these wells are not fracced. They will only be interested in shale wells.

cheers,

Oilman