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US drilling rig count rises by 3 to 351
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count continues to increase, up by three to 351 when the New Year’s week count was released Dec. 30, but still down substantially, by 445, from a count of 796 a year ago.
When the count hit 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 Dec. 30 count includes 267 rigs targeting oil, up three from the previous week but down 403 from 670 a year ago, 83 rigs targeting gas, unchanged from the previous week but down 40 from 123 a year ago, and one miscellaneous rig, unchanged from the previous week and down two from a year ago.
Twenty-one of the holes were directional, 313 were horizontal and 17 were vertical.
Alaska count unchanged Texas (161), with the most active rigs in the country, was up by two from the previous week; Oklahoma (17) was up by one.
Rig counts were unchanged in the remaining states: Alaska (2), California (6), Colorado (6), Louisiana (43), New Mexico (65), North Dakota (11), Ohio (5), Pennsylvania (19), Utah (3), West Virginia (8) and Wyoming (4).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with two active rigs Dec. 30, unchanged from the previous week and down six from a year ago.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by two from the previous week at 175, and down 228 from a count of 403 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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