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Baker Hughes US rig count down 1 to 582 International rig count for August down 3 from July at 931, down 21 year over year, with land rigs unchanged, offshore rigs up by 3 Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
The Baker Hughes' U.S. rotary drilling rig count was 582 the week ending Sept. 6, down by one rig from 583 the previous week, and down by 50 from 632 a year ago, after dropping by two the week ending Aug. 30. Over the last eight weeks the rig count was down in five and up in three with a loss of nine over a gain of seven over the period, following a downward trend dominant since the beginning of May. This is the lowest domestic rig count since December of 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 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 Sept. 6 count includes 483 rigs targeting oil, unchanged from the previous week and down 30 from 513 a year ago, with 94 rigs targeting natural gas, down one from the previous week and down 19 from 113 a year ago, and five miscellaneous rigs, unchanged from the previous week and down one from a year ago.
Forty-eight of the rigs reported Sept. 6 were drilling directional wells, 520 were drilling horizontal wells and 14 were drilling vertical wells.
Alaska rig count unchanged West Virginia (8) was up two rigs from the previous week while New Mexico was up a single rig.
Pennsylvania (16) was down two rigs week over week; Colorado (12) and Oklahoma (38) were each down one rig.
Rig counts in other states were unchanged from the previous week: Alaska (10), California (8), Louisiana (40), North Dakota (33), Ohio (9), Texas (274), Utah (12) and Wyoming (14).
Baker Hughes shows Alaska with 10 rotary rigs active Sept. 6, unchanged from the previous week and up by one from a year ago when the count was nine.
The rig count in the Permian, the most active basin in the country, was up by one from the previous week at 306 and down by 14 from 320 a year ago.
Baker Hughes' monthly international rig count for August, issued Sept. 6, is down by three from July at 931, and down by 21 from a count of 952 in August 2023, with land rigs unchanged at 720 and offshore rigs up by three to 211.
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 August, 337, followed by Asia Pacific with 215, Latin America with 160, Europe with 115 and Africa with 104.
The U.S. rig count averaged 586 in August, unchanged from July, and down 61 from August 2023, while the Canadian count for August averaged 218, up 25 from July and up by 29 from August 2023.
Worldwide the rig count averaged 1,735 in August, up 22 from 1,713 in July and down 53 from 1,788 in August 2023.
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