US drilling rig count down by 2 to 967

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The number of rigs drilling for oil and natural gas in the U.S. was down by two the week ending June 21 to 967.

A year ago, the count was 1,052 active rigs.

Houston oilfield services company Baker Hughes reported that 789 rigs targeted oil (up one from the previous week) and 177 targeted natural gas (down four). One miscellaneous rig was active.

The company said 68 of the U.S. holes were directional, 846 were horizontal and 53 were vertical.

Alaska was up by four rigs from the previous week; West Virginia was up by two.

The rig counts for a number of states were unchanged from the previous week: California, Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah and Wyoming.

New Mexico and Oklahoma were each down by one rig, while Pennsylvania was down by two.

Texas, with the largest number of active rigs in the country, 463, was down by four rigs from the previous week.

Baker Hughes shows Alaska with nine rigs, the same count as a year ago.

The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981. It bottomed out in May 2016 at 404.

- KRISTEN NELSON