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US rotary drilling rig count 604, up by 3
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Baker Hughes’ U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 604 the week ending Jan. 21, a gain of three rigs over the previous week and up by 226 from a count of 378 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 Jan. 21 count includes 491 rigs targeting oil, down by one from the previous week and up 202 from 289 a year ago, with 113 rigs targeting gas, up by four from the previous week and up 25 from 88 a year ago, and no miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and down by one from a year ago.
Thirty-seven of the rigs reported Jan. 21 were drilling directional wells, 544 were drilling horizontal wells and 23 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged Pennsylvania (22) was up by two rigs from the previous week, while Louisiana (56), Oklahoma (50) and Utah (10) were each up by a single rig.
Texas (280) and Wyoming (15) were each down by a single rig.
Rig counts in all other states were unchanged week over week: Alaska (6), California (8), Colorado (12), New Mexico (95), North Dakota (27), Ohio (11) and West Virginia (11).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with six rigs active Jan. 21, unchanged from the previous week and up by one from a year ago, when the state’s rig count stood at five.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up down by one from the previous week at 292 and up by 104 from 188 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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