US drilling rigs down by 1 to 790

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

Baker Hughes reports the number of rigs drilling for oil and natural gas in the U.S. the week ending Feb. 28 is down by one from the previous week to 790 and down by 268 from 1,038 a year ago.

In its weekly rig count the Houston oilfield services company said 678 rigs targeted oil, down one from the previous week and down 165 from a year ago, while 110 targeted natural gas, unchanged from the previous week and down 85 from a year ago. There were two miscellaneous rigs active, unchanged from the previous week and up by two from a year ago.

The company said 46 of the holes were directional, 708 were horizontal and 36 were vertical.

Texas, the state with the most active rigs at 401, was up by four rigs from the previous week.

Wyoming was up two rigs week over week; Colorado was up by one.

Rig counts were unchanged from the previous week in California, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah and West Virginia.

Alaska and Louisiana were each down by two rigs from the previous week; Oklahoma was down by three.

Baker Hughes shows Alaska with 10 rigs active for the week ending Feb. 28, down one 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