Baker Hughes US rig count down 1 to 620
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Texas gains 7 rigs; California, New Mexico each down 3; March worldwide rig count 1,793, down 20 from February, down 86 from 2023
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 620 the week ending April 5, down by one rig from 621 the previous week, and down by 133 from 151 a year ago, following a drop of three rigs last week. The rig count was down in five and up in three of the last eight weeks, with a loss of 18 against a gain of 15 over the period, following a downward trend dominant since the beginning of May.
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 2023, the count hit its low point Nov. 10 at 616, down from a high of 775 on Jan. 13, 2023. In 2022, the count bottomed out at 588 Jan. 1, reaching a high for the year of 784 on Nov. 23.
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 April 5 count includes 508 rigs targeting oil, up by two from the previous week and down 82 from 590 a year ago, with 110 rigs targeting natural gas, down two from the previous week and down 48 from 158 a year ago, and two miscellaneous rigs, down one from the previous week and down one from a year ago.
Fifty-one of the rigs reported April 5 were drilling directional wells, 557 were drilling horizontal wells and 12 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged Texas (297) was up by seven rigs from the previous week and Pennsylvania (22) was up by a single rig.
California (3) and New Mexico (108) were each down by three rigs.
Louisiana (39) was down by two rigs and West Virginia (8) was down one rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (14), Colorado (15), North Dakota (32), Ohio (12), Oklahoma (44), Utah (12) and Wyoming (11).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with 14 rotary rigs active April 5, unchanged from the previous week and up by four from a year ago when the count was 10.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by one from the previous week at 317 and down by 36 from 353 a year ago.
International count gains 13 rigs Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for March, issued April 5, is up by 13 from February at 971, with land rigs up one to 736 and the offshore count at 235 up by 12. Compared to the March 2023 count of 930, the March 2024 international count is up by 41, with land rigs up by 34 and offshore rigs up by seven.
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 March, 344, followed by Asia Pacific with 229, Latin America with 165, Europe with 118 and Africa with 115.
The U.S. rig count averaged 625 in March, up by three from February, and down 127 from March 2023, while the Canadian count for March averaged 198, down 36 rigs from February and up by one from March 2023.
Worldwide the rig count was 1,793 in March, down 20 from 1,813 in February and down 86 from 1,878 in March 2023.
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