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US rotary rig count at 503, a gain of 3
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 503 the week ending Aug. 20, up three from 500 the previous week and up by 249 from 254 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 Aug. 20 count includes 405 rigs targeting oil, up by eight from the previous week and up 222 from 183 a year ago, with 97 rigs targeting gas, down by five from the previous week and up by 29 from 59 a year ago, and one miscellaneous rig, unchanged from the previous week and down by one from a year ago.
Thirty of the rigs reported Aug. 20 were drilling directional wells, 454 were drilling horizontal wells and 19 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged The Louisiana rig count (49) was up by two from the previous week.
New Mexico (80), North Dakota (22), Ohio (12) and Utah (11) were each up by a single rig.
Texas (231) and West Virginia (9) were each down one rig from the previous week.
Counts in all other states were unchanged, week-over-week: Alaska (4), California (6), Colorado (11), Oklahoma (30), Pennsylvania (19) and Wyoming (16).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with four rigs active Aug. 20, unchanged from the previous week and up one from a year ago, when the state’s count stood at three.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by two from the previous week at 247 and up by 120 from a count of 127 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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