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Baker Hughes rig count gains 10 to 543
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
For the week ending Oct. 15, the Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count was up by 10 rigs from the preceding week to 543, an increase of 261 from 282 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 Oct. 15 count includes 445 rigs targeting oil, up 12 from the previous week and up 240 from 205 a year ago, with 98 rigs targeting gas, down by one from the previous week and up 24 from 74 a year ago, and no miscellaneous rigs, down from one the previous week and down by three from a year ago.
Thirty-two of the rigs reported Oct. 15 were drilling directional wells, 481 were drilling horizontal wells and 30 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count up by one Texas (250) had the largest week-over-week gain, up by three.
California (9), Louisiana (47) and Oklahoma (43) were each up by two rigs.
Alaska (6) and West Virginia (11) were both up by one rig.
New Mexico (85) and Ohio (10) were each down by a single rig from the previous week.
Counts in all other states were unchanged, week over week: Colorado (11), North Dakota (22), Pennsylvania (17), Utah (10) and Wyoming (18).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with six rigs active Oct. 15, up by one from the previous week and up by four from a year ago, when the state’s count stood at two.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by one from the previous week at 267 and up by 137 from a count of 130 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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