Baker Hughes US rig count down 8 to 539
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Count is lowest since October 2021; international June count is 913 rigs, 730 land, 183 offshore, up from May, but down from 2024
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 539 on July 3, down by eight from the previous week -- the tenth consecutive week of drops. The count was down by 46 from 585 a year ago, down by 15 from two weeks ago and down 48 over the 10 weeks. This is the lowest the rig count has been since October 2021.
A drop of 17 to 731 on May 12, 2023, was the steepest weekly drop since June of 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the count also dropped by 17 to 284 on June 5, following drops as steep as 73 rigs in one week in April. The count continued down to 251 at the end of July 2020, reaching an all-time low of 244 in mid-August 2020.
For 2024, the count peaked March 1 (and again March 15) at 629, hitting its low point June 28 at 581. In 2023 the count peaked early in the year at 775 on Jan. 13, bottoming out Nov. 10 at 616.
When the count dropped to 244 in mid-August 2020, it was the lowest the domestic rotary rig count had been since the Houston based oilfield services company began issuing weekly U.S. numbers in 1944.
Prior to 2020, the low was 404 rigs in May 2016. The count peaked at 4,530 in 1981.
The count was in the low 790s at the beginning of 2020 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, where it remained through mid-March of that year when it began to fall, dropping below what had been the historic low in early May with a count of 374 and continuing to drop through the third week of August 2020 when it gained back 10 rigs.
The July 3 count includes 425 rigs targeting oil, down by seven from the previous week and down 54 from 479 a year ago, with 108 rigs targeting natural gas, down by one from the previous week and up seven from 101 a year ago, and six miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and up by one from a year ago.
Forty-four of the rigs reported July 3 were drilling directional wells, 480 were drilling horizontal wells and 15 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged No states had week-over-week rig count increases.
Oklahoma (43) was down three rigs from the previous week; New Mexico (90) and Texas (456) were both down by two rigs; and Pennsylvania (17) and Wyoming (17) were each down by a single rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (10), California (6), Colorado (8), Louisiana (31), North Dakota (29), Ohio (11), Utah (9) and West Virginia (7).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with 10 rotary rigs active July 3, unchanged from the previous week and up by one from a year ago when the state's count was nine.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was down by five from the previous week at 265 and down by 40 from 305 a year ago.
International rig count up by 27 in June Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for June, issued July 3, is up by 27 from May at 913 and down 44 from a count of 957 in June 2024, with land rigs up by 31 at 730, month over month, and offshore rigs down by four at 183.
Baker Hughes began providing a monthly international rig count in 1975. The international count excludes North America, which is included in the company's worldwide figures.
The Middle East accounted for the most rigs in the international totals for June, 339, followed by Asia Pacific with 204, Latin America with 143, Europe with 125 and Africa with 102.
The U.S. rig count averaged 554 in June, down by 20 from 573 in May, and down 35 from June 2024, while the Canadian count for June averaged 133, up 17 from 116 in May and down 29 from June 2024.
Worldwide the rig count averaged 1,600 in June, up 24 from 1,576 in May and down 107 from 1,707 in June 2024.
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