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US drilling rig count drops by two to 310
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary rig count dropped to 310 for the week ending Nov. 20, down by two from 312 the previous week, a minor reversal in a gradual increase that began in mid-August. The count is still down substantially from a year ago, by 493 from 803.
When the count hit 244 the week of Aug. 14, it was not just the low for 2020, but the lowest it has been since the Houston based oilfield services company began issuing a weekly U.S. rig count in 1944.
Prior to this year, the low was 404 rigs in May 2016. The count peaked at 4,530 in 1981.
At the beginning of the year the count was in the low 790s, 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.
This week’s count includes 231 rigs targeting oil, down five from the previous week and down 440 from a year ago, 76 rigs targeting gas, up three from the previous week but down 53 from a year ago and three miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and up three from a year ago.
Twenty of the holes were directional, 272 were horizontal and 20 were vertical.
Alaska count unchanged The rig count for New Mexico (55) was up two from the previous week.
Oklahoma (13), Texas (144) and Wyoming (2) were each down by one rig week over week.
Rig counts were unchanged in the remaining states: Alaska (3), California (4), Colorado (4), Louisiana (38), North Dakota (11), Ohio (4), Pennsylvania (20), Utah (3) and West Virginia (7).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with three active rigs Nov. 20, unchanged from the previous week but down by two from a year ago.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by two from the previous week at 156, but down 249 from a count of 405 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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