US rotary rig count gains 5, now at 461
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Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 461 the week ending June 11, up by five from 456 the previous week and up by 182 from 279 a year ago.
When the count bottomed out at 244 in mid-August last year, it was not just the low for 2020, but the lowest the count has 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, where it remained through mid-March, 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 when it gained back 10 rigs.
The June 11 count includes 365 rigs targeting oil, up six from the previous week and up 166 from 199 a year ago, 96 rigs targeting gas, down by one from the previous week and up by 18 from 7 a year ago, and no miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and down by two from a year ago.
Twenty-four of the rigs reported June 11 were drilling directional wells, 420 were drilling horizontal wells and 17 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count down by one Texas (219) and Wyoming (7) each gained two rigs from the previous week.
New Mexico (75) gained two rigs and West Virginia (12) was up by a single rig.
Ohio (8) was down two rigs from the previous week.
Alaska (3) and Pennsylvania (16) were each down a single rig.
Counts in all other states were unchanged from the previous week: California (6), Colorado (9), Louisiana (52), North Dakota (16), Oklahoma (28) and Utah (9).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with three rigs active June 11, down by one from the previous week and unchanged from a year ago, when the state’s count also stood at three.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by four from the previous week at 236 and up by 99 from a count of 137 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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