Earnings season is a busy time for the stock market. And the January/February season--when most companies report fourth quarter results--is the busiest of them all. That's because companies typically offer a look at the year ahead, shedding some light on new themes to consider.

There's a handful of companies I watch more carefully than others; I see these firms as key "tells" for the energy market. One such firm is oil services giant Schlumberger (NYSE: SLB). The reason I watch this stock so carefully and listen to all of management's conference calls and presentations is that Schlumberger has its hands in every region of the world and in every conceivable type of oil project currently underway. If you're looking for the 35,000-foot view of the oil market, Schlumberger is your best bet.
The era of cheap oil and natural gas is over and we're in the middle of one of the most powerful bull market cycles of the 21st century. There are no major pockets of untapped "easy" oil left to be exploited. In other words, the easy and cheap-to-recover onshore oil fields are mature and, for the most part, already seeing declining production.

The world's new potential growth plays in oil: deepwater reserves, Artic reserves, oil sands and other technically more-difficult-to-produce reserves. For such resources to be developed, crude oil prices will need to average well north of $55 per barrel.

There's a distinction to be made between the idea that the world is running out of oil and the concept of the end of easy oil. The world will never truly run out of oil; the last barrel of oil will never even be produced. The simple fact is that production from a reserve tops out long before that reserve is even halfway produced. Just because there's a good deal more oil left in the ground doesn't mean you can produce it quickly or even that it's economical to do so.

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