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Baker Hughes US rig count up by 7 at 589
Texas has largest change, up by 5; monthly international count averaged 919 in November, down 31 from October, down 59 from 2023 Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 589 on Dec. 6, up by seven from the previous week, down by 37 from 626 a year ago and down by one from two weeks ago. Over the last eight weeks the rig count was unchanged in three weeks, down in four and up in one week with a gain of seven and losses of four, a change from the downward trend dominant since the beginning of May. This is the lowest domestic rig count since January 2022.
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 2023, the count hit its low point Nov. 10 at 616, down from a high of 775 on Jan. 13, 2023. In 2022, the count bottomed out at 588 Jan. 1, reaching a high for the year of 784 on Nov. 23.
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 Dec. 6 count includes 482 rigs targeting oil, up five from the previous week and down 21 from 503 a year ago, with 102 rigs targeting natural gas, up two from the previous week and down 17 from 1169 a year ago, and five miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and up by one from a year ago.
Forty-nine of the rigs reported Dec. 6 were drilling directional wells, 526 were drilling horizontal wells and 14 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged Texas (286) was up by five rigs from the previous week.
California (6), North Dakota (35), Pennsylvania (16) and Utah (12) were each up by a single rig.
Ohio (9) and Oklahoma (43) were each down by a single rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (10), Colorado (10), Louisiana (30), New Mexico (102), West Virginia (10) and Wyoming (18).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with 10 rotary rigs active Dec. 6, 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 up by one from the previous week at 304 and down by nine from 313 a year ago.
International rig count down 31 in November Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for November, issued Dec. 6, is down by 31 from October at 919 and down 59 from a count of 978 in November 2023, with land rigs down 14 to 712, month over month, and offshore rigs down 17 to 207.
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 November, 336, followed by Asia Pacific with 219, Latin America with 146, Europe with 118 and Africa with 100.
The U.S. rig count averaged 584 in November, down one from October, and down 35 from November 2023, while the Canadian count for November averaged 205, down 14 from October and up by eight from November 2023.
Worldwide the rig count averaged 1,708 in November, down 46 from 1,754 in October and down 86 from 1,794 in November 2023.
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