US rotary rig count at 432, a gain of two

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count, 432 on April 9, was up by two from 430 the from the previous week and down 170 from a count of 602 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 April 9 count includes 337 rigs targeting oil, unchanged from the previous week and down 167 from 504 a year ago, 93 rigs targeting gas, up two from the previous week and down by three from 96 a year ago, and two miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and unchanged from a year ago.

Eighteen of the holes reported April 9 were directional, 394 were horizontal and 20 were vertical.

Alaska unchanged from previous week

Ohio (10) and Oklahoma (20) were each up by a single rig.

Louisiana (46) and Wyoming (4) were down by one from the previous week. Baker Hughes shows Alaska with three rigs active April 9, unchanged from the previous week and down by three from a year ago, when the state’s count stood at six.

Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (3), California (7), Colorado (10), New Mexico (70), North Dakota (14), Pennsylvania (19), Texas (209) and West Virginia (11).

The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was unchanged from the previous week at 224, but down by 92 from a count of 316 a year ago.

- KRISTEN NELSON