|
Baker Hughes US rig count down 6 at 594
May international rig count down 25 from April at 953 led by drop of 22 in offshore rigs; largest area drop Asia Pacific, down 11
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 594 the week ending June 7, down six from 600 the previous week, and down by 101 from 695 a year ago, with the count last week unchanged from the previous week. Over the last eight weeks the rig count was unchanged one week, down in five and up in two, with a loss of 26 against a gain of three 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 June 7 count includes 492 rigs targeting oil, down four from the previous week and down 64 from 556 a year ago, with 98 rigs targeting natural gas, down two from the previous week and down 37 from 135 a year ago, and four miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and also unchanged from a year ago.
Forty-three of the rigs reported June 7 were drilling directional wells, 531 were drilling horizontal wells and 20 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged California (4) was up by a single rig from the previous week.
Oklahoma (38) was down by four rigs week over week.
Louisiana (41), Pennsylvania (21) and West Virginia (5) were each down by a single rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (9), Colorado (14), New Mexico (107), North Dakota (32), Ohio (10), Texas (287), Utah (12) and Wyoming (11).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with nine rotary rigs active June 7, unchanged from the previous week and up by two from a year ago when the count was seven rigs.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was unchanged from the previous week at 310 and down by 36 from 346 a year ago.
International count down by 25 rigs Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for May, issued June 7, is down by 25 from April at 953, with land rigs down three to 740 and the offshore count down 22 to 213. Compared to the May 2023 count of 965, the May 2024 international count is down by 12, with land rigs up by 11 and offshore rigs up by 23.
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 May, 341, followed by Asia Pacific with 226, Latin America with 157, Europe with 123 and Africa with 106.
The U.S. rig count averaged 602 in May, down by 15 from April, and down 125 from May 2023, while the Canadian count for May averaged 120, down 11 rigs from April and up by 30 from May 2023.
Worldwide the rig count was 1,675 in May, down 51 from 1,726 in April and down 107 from 1,782 in May 2023.
| 