US drilling rig count jumps by 13 to 373

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count continues to rise, up by 13 to 373 for the week ending Jan. 15, the largest week-over-week increase since the rig count began to grow in mid-August, but still down by 423 from a count of 796 a year ago.

When the count hit 244 in mid-August last year, it was not just the low for 2020, but the lowest the 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 when it gained back 10 rigs.

The Jan. 15 count includes 287 rigs targeting oil, up 12 from the previous week but down 386 from 673 a year ago, 85 rigs targeting gas, up one from the previous week but down 35 from 120 a year ago, and one miscellaneous rig, unchanged from the previous week and down two from a year ago.

Twenty-two of the holes were directional, 332 were horizontal and 19 were vertical.

Alaska count unchanged

Louisiana (47) was up by four; Colorado (8) and West Virginia (11) were each up by two rigs; New Mexico (70) was up by a single rig.

Rig numbers were unchanged from the previous week in Alaska (3), California (7), Ohio (4), Utah (3) and Wyoming (4).

Pennsylvania (19) was down by two rigs from the previous week; North Dakota (10) and Oklahoma (17) were each down by one.

Baker Hughes shows Alaska with three active rigs Jan. 15, unchanged from the previous week but down by three from a year ago.

The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by 10 from the previous week at 189, but down 214 from a count of 403 a year ago.

- KRISTEN NELSON