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Baker Hughes US rig count down 2 to 540
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 540 on Aug. 1, down by two from the previous week -- a return to decreases in the rig count after a gain of seven rigs, all targeting natural gas, two weeks ago. Over the past 14 weeks, only one week had an increase, with the overall count down 44 over the period. The count was down by 48 from 588 a year ago and down four from two weeks ago. This is the lowest the rig count has been since October 2021.
A drop of 17 to 731 on May 12, 2023, was the steepest weekly drop since June of 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the count also dropped by 17 to 284 on June 5, following drops as steep as 73 rigs in one week in April. The count continued down to 251 at the end of July 2020, reaching an all-time low of 244 in mid-August 2020.
For 2024, the count peaked March 1 (and again March 15) at 629, hitting its low point June 28 at 581. In 2023 the count peaked early in the year at 775 on Jan. 13, bottoming out Nov. 10 at 616.
When the count dropped to 244 in mid-August 2020, it was the lowest the domestic rotary rig count had 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 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, where it remained through mid-March of that year 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. 1 count includes 410 rigs targeting oil, down by five from the previous week and down 72 from 482 a year ago, with 124 rigs targeting natural gas, up two from the previous week and up 26 from 98 a year ago, and six miscellaneous rigs, up one from the previous week and unchanged from a year ago.
Fifty-four of the rigs reported Aug. 1 were drilling directional wells, 483 were drilling horizontal wells and 15 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged New Mexico (96) was up three rigs from the previous week.
Texas (245) was down four rigs week over week, while Louisiana (34) and Oklahoma (41) were each down one rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (9), California (6), Colorado (12), North Dakota (29), Ohio (11), Pennsylvania (18), Utah (10), West Virginia (7) and Wyoming (15).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with nine rotary rigs active Aug. 1, unchanged from the previous week and down by one from a year ago when the state's count was 10.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was down by one from the previous week at 259 and down by 44 from 303 a year ago.
International rig count up by 1 in July Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for July, issued Aug. 1, is up by one from June at 914 and down 20 from a count of 934 in July 2024, with land rigs down 10 to 720, month over month, and offshore rigs up 11 194.
Baker Hughes began providing a monthly international rig count in 1975. The international count excludes North America, which is included in the company's worldwide figures.
The Middle East accounted for the most rigs in the international totals for July, 334, followed by Asia Pacific with 207, Latin America with 143, Europe with 129 and Africa with 101.
The U.S. rig count averaged 541 in July, down by 13 from 554 in June, and down 46 from July 2024, while the Canadian count for July averaged 167, up 34 from 133 in June and down 26 from July 2024.
Worldwide the rig count averaged 1,621 in July, up 22 from 1,600 in June and down 92 from 1,713 in July 2024.
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