The total number of total active drilling rigs in the United States rose by 6 this week, after falling by 8 last week, according to new data from Baker Hughes published Friday.
The total rig count rose to 680 this week-72 rigs below this time last year. The current count is 395 fewer rigs than the rig count at the beginning of 2019, prior to the pandemic.
The number of oil rigs declined by 5 this week to 540, while the number of gas rigs rose by 11, to 135. Miscellaneous rigs stayed the same at 5.
The rig count in the Permian Basin rose by 1 this week, and stand at 8 rigs below this same time last year. The rig count in the Eagle Ford fell by 1, and was down 8 rigs from this time last year.
Primary Vision's Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing unfinished wells (which is cheaper than drilling new wells), fell by 5 in the week ending June 30, to 272. The frac spread count is 13 behind where it was this time last year.
Crude oil production levels in the United States rose to 12.4 million bpd in the week ending June 30, according to the latest weekly EIA estimates-a gain of 200,000 bpd from the beginning of the year. U.S. production levels are now up 300,000 bpd versus a year ago.
At 12:21 p.m. ET on Friday, the WTI benchmark was trading up $1.14 (+1.59%) on the day at $72.94-up about $2 per barrel from this time last week, and $4 per barrel from the week before that. The Brent benchmark was trading up $1.14 (+1.49%) at %$77.66 per barrel on the day-up $2.50 from a week ago.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More