Item 1A. Risk Factors
Risks Related to our Business.
Demand for our equipment and services is affected by the volatility of oil and natural gas prices.
Oil and natural gas prices affect demand throughout the oil and gas industry, including the demand for our equipment and services. Our business depends in large part on the conditions of the oil and gas industry, and specifically on the capital investments of our customers related to the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. When these capital investments decline, our customers’ demand for our services declines.
The price of oil, a world-wide commodity, is affected by, among other things, the potential of armed conflict in politically unstable areas such as the Middle East as well as the actions of OPEC, an oil cartel which controls approximately 40 percent of global oil production. OPEC’s actions have historically been unpredictable and can contribute to the volatility of the price of oil on the world market.
Although the production sector of the oil and gas industry is less immediately affected by changing prices, and, as a result, less volatile than the exploration sector, producers react to declining oil and gas prices by curtailing capital spending, which would adversely affect our business. A prolonged low level of customer activity in the oil and gas industry adversely affects the demand for our equipment and services and our financial condition and results of operations.
Reliance upon a large customer may adversely affect our revenues and operating results.
At times our business has had a concentration of one or more major customers. One of our customers, a private exploration and production company, accounted for approximately 11 percent of the Company’s revenues in 2022 with no other customers exceeding 10 percent of revenues in 2022. There was no customer that accounted for 10 percent or more of the Company’s revenues in 2021 or 2020. In addition, there was no customer as of December 31, 2022 or 2021 that accounted for 10 percent or more of accounts receivable. The reliance on a large customer for a significant portion of our total revenues exposes us to the risk that the loss or reduction in revenues from this customer, which could occur unexpectedly, could have a material and disproportionate adverse impact upon our revenues and operating results.
Our concentration of customers in one industry and periodic downturns may impact our overall exposure to credit risk and cause us to experience increased credit loss allowance for accounts receivable.
Substantially all of our customers operate in the energy industry. This concentration of customers in one industry may impact our overall exposure to credit risk, either positively or negatively, in that customers may be similarly affected by changes in economic and industry conditions. We perform ongoing credit evaluations of our customers and do not generally require collateral in support of our trade receivables. The periodic downturns that our industry experiences may adversely affect our customers' operations which could cause us to experience increased credit losses for accounts receivable.
Our business depends on capital spending by our customers, many of whom rely on outside financing to fund their operations.
Many of our customers rely on their ability to raise equity capital and debt financing from capital markets to fund their operations. Their ability to raise outside capital depends upon, among other things, the availability of capital, near-term operating prospects of oil and gas companies, current and projected prices of oil and natural gas, and relative attractiveness of competing investments for available investment capital. These factors are outside of our control, and in the event our customers cannot continue to raise outside capital to fund their operations, RPC’s financial results would be negatively impacted.
RPC’s success will depend on its key personnel, and the loss of any key personnel may affect its revenues.
RPC’s success will depend to a significant extent on the continued service of key management personnel. The loss or interruption of the services of any senior management personnel or the inability to attract and retain other qualified management, sales, marketing and technical employees could disrupt RPC’s operations and cause a decrease in its revenues and profit margins.
We may be unable to compete in the highly competitive oil and gas industry in the future.
We operate in highly competitive areas of the oilfield services industry. The equipment and services in our industry segments are sold in highly competitive markets, and our revenues and earnings have in the past been affected by changes in competitive prices, fluctuations in the level of activity in major markets and general economic conditions. We compete with the oil and gas industry’s