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Baker Hughes US rig count down 8 to 605
Lowest count since early 2022; Alaska, Texas, each down 7 rigs week over week; international count for April up by 7 from 2023
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 605 the week ending May 3, down by eight rigs from 613 the previous week, and down by 143 from 748 a year ago, following a drop of six rigs last week. The rig count was down in six and up in two of the last eight weeks, with a loss of 26 against a gain of nine over the period, following a downward trend dominant since the beginning of May. This is the lowest the domestic count has been since January of 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 May 3 count includes 499 rigs targeting oil, down by seven from the previous week and down 89 from 588 a year ago, with 102 rigs targeting natural gas, down three from the previous week and down 55 from 157 a year ago, and four miscellaneous rigs, up by two from the previous week and up by one from a year ago.
Forty of the rigs reported May 3 were drilling directional wells, 552 were drilling horizontal wells and 13 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count down five Louisiana (38) was up by two rigs from the previous week and New Mexico (108) was up by one rig.
Alaska (9) and Texas (292) were both down by five rigs week over week, while Utah (11) was down by a single rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: California (3), Colorado (14), North Dakota (32), Ohio (11), Oklahoma (45), Pennsylvania (21), West Virginia (8) and Wyoming (11).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with nine rotary rigs active May 3, down by four from the previous week and unchanged from a year ago when the count was also nine.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was down by one from the previous week at 316 and down by 40 from 356 a year ago.
International count up by 7 rigs Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for April, issued May 3, is up by seven from March at 978, with land rigs up seven to 743 and the offshore count unchanged at 235. Compared to the April 2023 count of 947, the April 2024 international count is up by 31, with land rigs up by 23 and offshore rigs up by eight.
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 April, 343, followed by Asia Pacific with 237, Latin America with 166, Europe with 120 and Africa with 112.
The U.S. rig count averaged 617 in April, down by eight from March, and down 135 from April 2023, while the Canadian count for April averaged 131, down 66 rigs from February and up by 22 from April 2023.
Worldwide the rig count was 1,726 in April, down 67 from 1,793 in March and down 82 from 1,808 in April 2023.
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