Norway Plans to Develop a New $570-Million Oil and Gas Field
The total number of active drilling rigs for oil and gas in the United States fell again this week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday, falling by 3. U.S. drillers saw a total loss of rigs this year of 5.
The total rig count fell by 3 to 617 this week, compared to 751 rigs this same time last year.
The number of oil rigs fell by 2 this week. Oil rigs now stand at 506--down by 84 compared to this time last year. The number of gas rigs fell by 1 this week to 109, a loss of 49 active gas rigs from this time last year. Miscellaneous rigs stayed the same at 2.
Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil production stayed the same for the fifth week in a row at an average of 13.1 million bpd for the week ending April 5-down 200,000 bpd from the all-time high of 13.3 million bpd.
Primary Vision's Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing wells that are unfinished, fell for the third week in a row in the week ending April 5. Completions fell by 3 to 257 for the week, which is 30 down from this time last year.
The Permian saw a 1-rig decrease after rising by 1 in the week prior. The count in the Eagle Ford also fell by a single rig this week after rising by one in the week prior.
Oil prices were trading up sharply on Friday morning-gaining roughly $2 per barrel early on, but easing into the afternoon. At 12:36 p.m. ET, the WTI benchmark was trading up $0.96 (+1.13%) on the day at $85.98, but down $1.50 week over week.
The Brent benchmark was trading up $0.90 (+1.00%) at $90.64, but down roughly $1 per barrel 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