The total number of active drilling rigs in the United States rose by 3 this week after rising by 4 last week, according to new data that Baker Hughes published Friday.
The total rig count rose to 625 this week. Since this time last year, Baker Hughes has estimated a loss of 159 active drilling rigs. This week’s count is 450 fewer rigs than the rig count at the beginning of 2019 prior to the pandemic.
The number of oil rigs rose by 5 to 505. Oil rigs are now down by 122 compared to this time last year. The number of gas rigs fell by 1 this week to 116, a loss of 39 active gas rigs from this time last year. Miscellaneous also fell by a single rig.
The rig count in the Permian Basin rose by 3 rigs this week, and is now 36 rigs below this same time last year. The rig count in the Eagle Ford stayed the same at 50, which is 21 fewer than this time last year.
Primary Vision’s Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing unfinished, rose in the week to November 22 to 281, up from 276 in the week prior. The frac spread count is 23 more than where it started the year.
Oil prices were trading slightly up on Friday as the market attempted to digest what OPEC+ delivered: a voluntary cut of another 600,000+bpd starting in January, with Russia and Saudi Arabia extending their 1.5 million bpd in cuts through the first quarter. At 12:36 a.m. ET on Friday, the WTI benchmark was trading up $0.13 (+0.17%) on the day at $76.09, up roughly $1 per barrel from this time last week. The Brent benchmark was trading up $0.09 (+0.11%) at $80.95, up $0.30 per barrel from a week ago.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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