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US drilling rig count climbs 8 to 346
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes U.S. rotary drilling rig count continued to increase, up by eight the week ending Dec. 18 to 346, still down substantially, by 467, from a count of 813 a year ago.
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.
The Dec. 18 count includes 263 rigs targeting oil, up five from the previous week but down 422 from 685 a year ago, 81 rigs targeting gas, up by two from the previous week but down 44 from 125 a year ago, and two miscellaneous rigs, up by one from the previous week and down one from a year ago.
Twenty-one of the holes were directional, 308 were horizontal and 17 were vertical. Alaska count unchanged New Mexico (66) was up by six rigs from the previous week, while Texas, with the most active rigs at 158, was up three from the previous week, although still down 260 from 418 a year ago.
Wyoming (4) was down one rig from the previous week.
Rig counts were unchanged in the remaining states: Alaska (3), California (6), Colorado (7), Louisiana (40), North Dakota (11), Ohio (5), Oklahoma (14), Pennsylvania (19), Utah (3) and West Virginia (9).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with three active rigs Dec. 18, unchanged from the previous week but down by three from a year ago.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by six from the previous week at 174, but down 240 from a count of 414 a year ago.
- KRISTEN NELSON
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