US rig count up 1 at 546
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Texas down 1; majority state counts unchanged; November international up 49 year-over-year
Susan Crane Petroleum News
Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 546 on Dec. 30, up one from the previous week. The domestic rig count has ranged from the 530s through the 550s since the beginning of June.
For 2025, the count peaked Feb. 28 (and again March 21) at 593, hitting its low point Aug. 29 at 526. 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.
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.
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 Dec. 30 count includes 412 rigs targeting oil, up by three from the previous week and down 70 from 482 a year ago, with 125 rigs targeting natural gas, down by two from the previous week and up 22 from 103 a year ago, and nine miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and up by five from a year ago.
Fifty-six of the rigs reported Dec. 30 were drilling directional wells, 476 were drilling horizontal wells and 14 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged Utah (13) and Wyoming (16) were each up two rigs from the previous week.
Texas (231) was down by a single rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (9), California (8), Colorado (11), Louisiana (43), New Mexico (101), Ohio (14), Oklahoma (43), Pennsylvania (18) and West Virginia (7).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with nine rotary rigs active Dec. 30, unchanged from the previous week and down by one from a year ago when the state's count was 10.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was unchanged from the previous week at 247 and down by 57 from 304 a year ago.
International rig count down 8 in December Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for December, issued Jan. 2, was 1,065, down by eight from November and down 49 from a count of 1,114 in December 2024, with land rigs down two to 845, month over month, and offshore rigs down six to 220.
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 December, 509, followed by Asia Pacific with 123, Latin America with 104, Europe with 96 and Africa with 92.
The U.S. rig count averaged 546 in December, down by three from 549 in November and down 43 from December 2024, while the Canadian count for December averaged 172, down 19 from 189 in December and up 10 from December 2024.
Worldwide the rig count averaged 1,783 in December, down 30 from 1,812 in November and down 82 from 1,812 in December 2024.
--KRISTEN NELSON
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