Baker Hughes US rig count up by 4 at 586
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January international rig count down four from December, down 60 from January 2024 count of 965; largest drop in offshore rigs
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 586 on Feb. 7, up by four from the previous week, down by 37 from 623 a year ago and up 10 from two weeks ago. Over the last eight weeks the rig count was unchanged in three weeks, down in three weeks and up in two with a combined loss of 13 and a gain of 10, and in spite of two consecutive weeks of increases, still overall in line with the downward trend dominant since the beginning of May.
This is the lowest the domestic rotary rig count has been since December 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 Feb. 7 count includes 480 rigs targeting oil, up by one from the previous week and down 19 from 499 a year ago, with 100 rigs targeting natural gas, up by two from the previous week and down 21 from 121 a year ago, and six miscellaneous rigs, up by one from the previous week and up by three from a year ago.
Fifty of the rigs reported Feb. 7 were drilling directional wells, 523 were drilling horizontal wells and 13 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged Louisiana (31) was up by two rigs from the previous week, while California (8), Texas (278), Utah (12) and Wyoming (20) were each up by a single rig.
Oklahoma (43) was down by two rigs week over week.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (10), Colorado (9), New Mexico (106), North Dakota (33), Ohio (9), Pennsylvania (15) and West Virginia (10).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with 10 rotary rigs active Feb. 7, unchanged from the previous week and unchanged from a year ago.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was unchanged from the previous week at 303 and down by 10 from 313 a year ago.
International rig count down 4 in January Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for January, issued Feb. 7, is down by four from December at 905 and down 60 from a count of 965 in January 2024, with land rigs up by one to 713, month over month, and offshore rigs up five to 197.
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 January, 346, followed by Asia Pacific with 206, Latin America with 132, Europe with 120 and Africa with 101.
The U.S. rig count averaged 582 in January, down by seven from December, and down 38 from January 2024, while the Canadian count for January averaged 208, up 47 from December and up by 11 from January 2024.
Worldwide the rig count averaged 1,696 in January, up 36 from 1,660 in December and down 87 from 1,783 in January 2024.
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