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US rotary rig count gains 5, now at 508
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 508 the week ending Aug. 27, up five from 503 the previous week and up by 254 from 254 a year ago.
When the count dropped to 244 in mid-August 2020 it was the lowest the domestic rotary rig 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 2020 when it gained back 10 rigs.
The Aug. 27 count includes 410 rigs targeting oil, up by five from the previous week and up 230 from 180 a year ago, with 97 rigs targeting gas, unchanged from the previous week and up by 25 from 72 a year ago, and one miscellaneous rig, unchanged from the previous week and down by one from a year ago.
Twenty-five of the rigs reported Aug. 27 were drilling directional wells, 459 were drilling horizontal wells and 21 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged The Wyoming rig count (18) was up by two from the previous week.
New Mexico (81), Oklahoma (31) and Texas (232) each gained a single rig week-over-week.
Counts in all other states were unchanged, week-over-week: Alaska (4), California (6), Colorado (11), Louisiana (49), North Dakota (22), Ohio (12), Pennsylvania (19), Utah (11) and West Virginia (9).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with four rigs active Aug. 27, unchanged from the previous week and up one from a year ago, when the state’s count stood at three.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by two from the previous week at 249 and up by 124 from a count of 125 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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