The drilling boom in the U.S. has become something of a mixed blessing for the country’s largest oilfield services companies. Demand for rigs and other services has swelled, but increased competition has weighed on the prices the service firms can charge even as their costs rise.

Land rig counts have stagnated in North America while offshore rig counts continue growing for deepwater projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The oilfield services sector needs demand to rise for land rigs in North America, but should that occur the rise is not likely to be steep enough to make a huge difference in services firms ability to raise praises and improve margins.

Here’s a look at the three largest U.S. oilfield services firms and their prospects for the coming year.

Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) has seen its shares rise nearly 34% so far in 2013. With a market cap around $122 billion, this firm is nearly three times larger than its nearest competitor. The stock closed at $92.73 on Friday and the consensus analyst price target of around $109.50 indicates a potential upside of about 18%. Shares have traded in a range of $67.60 to $94.91 over the last year. With a fiscal year 2014 earnings per share estimate of $5.87, it is valued at nearly 16-times next year’s expected earnings.

Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) has seen its shares rise about 57% so far in 2013. The second largest services firm with a market cap of about $46 billion, Halliburton’s international operations have picked up the slack in the third quarter from declining revenues in North America. The stock closed at $54.50 on Friday and the consensus analyst price target of around $66.00 indicates a potential upside of about 21%. Shares have traded in a range of $31.41 to $56.52 over the last year. With a fiscal year 2014 earnings per share estimate of $4.24, it is valued at nearly 13-times next year’s expected earnings.

Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI), which has a market cap of around $26 billion, has seen its shares rise about 42% so far in 2013. As with Halliburton, Baker Hughes got a lift from international operations in the third quarter although its North America segment performed nicely as well. The stock closed at $57.91 on Friday and the consensus analyst price target of $65.00 indicates a potential upside of about 12%. Shares have traded in a range of $39.56 to $58.83 over the last year. With a fiscal year 2014 earnings per share estimate of $4.22, it is valued at nearly 14-times next year’s expected earnings.

The earnings outlook for the 2013 fiscal year has Baker Hughes posting lower earnings per share than it did in 2012, the only one of these firms for which that is the case. The potential upside in Baker Hughes is the lowest among these three, while Halliburton has seen the biggest share price increase so far this year and Schlumberger sports the highest forward P/E ratio.

An argument could be made for any of these stocks as a value play, but given that we’re talking about the oil business where size really matters, we’d go with Schlumberger, where the year-to-date share price increase has been the smallest. Even the highest forward estimate is not way out of whack for a company Schlumberger’s size.

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