HOME PAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS, Print Editions, Newsletter PRODUCTS READ THE PETROLEUM NEWS ARCHIVE! ADVERTISING INFORMATION EVENTS PAY HERE

Providing coverage of Alaska and northern Canada's oil and gas industry
October 2020

Vol. 25, No.41 Week of October 11, 2020

US rotary rig count adds five, now at 266

Kristen Nelson

Petroleum News

The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary rig was at 266 for the week ending Oct. 3, up by five from 261 the previous week but down by 589 from 855 a year ago.

The count hit 244 the week of Aug. 14, 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 189 rigs targeting oil, up six from the previous week and down 521 from a year ago, 74 rigs targeting gas, down one from the previous week and down 70 from a year ago and three miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and up two from a year ago.

Twenty-one of the holes were directional, 229 were horizontal and 16 were vertical.

Alaska count unchanged

The rig count for New Mexico (44) was up by three rigs from the previous week; Louisiana (40) and North Dakota (10) were each up by one.

Counts in all other states remained unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (2), California (4), Colorado (5), Ohio (6), Oklahoma (12), Pennsylvania (19), Texas (113), West Virginia (7) and Wyoming (1).

Baker Hughes shows Alaska with two active rigs Oct. 3, unchanged from the previous week and down by seven from a year ago.

The rig count in the nation’s most active basin, the Permian (129), was up by four from the previous week.

International rig count down

Baker Hughes released its September international rig count Oct. 2.

That count was down by 45 rigs from August to 702 with land rigs down 39 to 524 and offshore rigs down six to 178.

Baker Hughes said the U.S. September rig count averaged 257, up by seven from the August count of 250 and down 621 year-over-year.

Canada’s rig count averaged 60 for September, up seven from August and down 72 year-over-year.

The worldwide rig count, a combination of international and North America, was 1,019 for September, down 31 from a count of 1,050 in August and down 1,122 from 2,141 in August 2019.

Baker Hughes began published the international rig count in 1975.






Petroleum News - Phone: 1-907 522-9469
[email protected] --- https://www.petroleumnews.com ---
S U B S C R I B E

Copyright Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA)Š1999-2019 All rights reserved. The content of this article and website may not be copied, replaced, distributed, published, displayed or transferred in any form or by any means except with the prior written permission of Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC (Petroleum News)(PNA). Copyright infringement is a violation of federal law.