US drilling rig count drops by 8 to 805

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

After a week in which the U.S. active rig count rose, it dropped again the week ending Dec. 27, returning to a trend it followed for much of the fall.

Baker Hughes reports the number of rigs drilling for oil and natural gas in the U.S. dropped by eight to 805, down 278 from 1,083 active rigs a year ago.

The company reported that 677 rigs targeted oil (down eight from the previous week; down 208 from a year ago) and 125 targeted natural gas (unchanged from the previous week; down 73 from a year ago). There were three miscellaneous rigs active (unchanged from the previous week and up by three from a year ago).

The company said 53 of the U.S. holes were directional, 703 were horizontal and 49 were vertical.

New Mexico was up two rigs from the previous week.

Alaska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Wyoming were each up one rig.

Rig counts were unchanged from the previous week for California, Colorado, Louisiana, Ohio, Utah and West Virginia.

Texas, with the largest number of active rigs at 404, was down by 14 rigs from the previous week.

Baker Hughes shows Alaska with seven rigs active for the week ending Dec. 27, unchanged from a year ago.

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

- KRISTEN NELSON