CLB 2018 Annual Report

12 We are subject to a variety of environmental and occupational safety and health laws and regulations, which may result in increased costs and significant liability to our business. We are subject to a variety of stringent governmental laws and regulations, both in the United States and foreign countries relating to protection of the environment, and occupational health and safety. Certain of these laws and regulations may impose joint and several, strict liability for environmental liabilities, such as the remediation of historical contamination or recent spills, and failure to comply with such laws and regulations could result in the assessment of damages, fines and penalties, the imposition of remedial or corrective action obligations, the occurrence of delays or cancellations in permitting or development of projects, or the suspension or cessation of some or all of our operations. These stringent laws and regulations could require us to acquire permits or other authorizations to conduct regulated activities, install and maintain costly equipment and pollution control technologies, impose specific safety and health standards addressing work protection, or to incur costs or liabilities to mitigate or remediate pollution conditions caused by our operations or attributable to former owners or operators. Additionally, our clients are also subject to most, if not all, of the same laws and regulations relating to environmental protection and occupational safety and health in the United States and in foreign countries where we operate. To the extent existing environmental laws and regulations or any new or more stringently enforced environmental legal requirements significantly increase our clients’ compliance costs, pollution mitigation costs or remedial costs, our clients could elect to delay, restrict or cancel drilling, exploration or production programs, which could reduce demand for our products and services and have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, or cash flows. For example, hydraulic fracturing continues to attract considerable public and governmental attention, both in the United States and in foreign countries, resulting in various controls applied to fracturing activities. Hydraulic fracturing is a process used by oil and gas exploration and production operators in the completion of certain oil and gas wells whereby water, sand or other proppants and chemical additives are injected under pressure into subsurface formations to stimulate gas and, to a lesser extent, oil production. Some countries outside the United States, such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and France, currently have imposed moratoria on hydraulic fracturing while other countries, such as the United Kingdom, allow fracturing activities but those activities are not as widely pursued as they are in the United States. In the United States, the fracturing process is typically regulated by state oil and gas commissions, but several federal agencies have asserted regulatory authority over certain aspects of the process. Additionally, a growing number of states have adopted, and other states are considering adopting, legal requirements that could impose more stringent disclosure, permitting and/or well construction requirements on hydraulic fracturing operations, and local governments may also seek to adopt ordinances within their jurisdictions regulating the time, place and manner of hydraulic fracturing activities. If new or more stringent federal, state or local legal restrictions related to the hydraulic fracturing process are adopted in areas where our exploration and production clients’ operate, those clients could incur potentially significant added costs to comply with such requirements and experience delays or curtailment in the pursuit of exploration, development or production activities, which could reduce demand for our products and services. See "Environmental and Occupational Safety and Health Regulations", under Item 1 of this Form 10-K for further discussion on environmental and worker safety and health matters. We may be unable to attract and retain skilled and technically knowledgeable employees, which could adversely affect our business. Our success depends upon attracting and retaining highly skilled professionals and other technical personnel. A number of our employees are highly skilled engineers, geologists and highly trained technicians, and our failure to continue to attract and retain such individuals could adversely affect our ability to compete in the oilfield services industry. In periods of high utilization, there may be a shortage of skilled and technical personnel available in the market, potentially compounding the difficulty of attracting and retaining these employees. As a result, our business, results of operations and financial condition may be materially adversely affected. We require a significant amount of cash to service our indebtedness, make capital expenditures, fund our working capital requirements and pay our dividend, and our ability to generate cash may depend on factors beyond our control.