The total number of active drilling rigs in the United States rose this week by 2, according to new data that Baker Hughes published on Friday.
The total rig count rose to 622 this week. Since this time last year, Baker Hughes has estimated a loss of 157 active drilling rigs. This week’s count is 452 fewer rigs than the rig count at the beginning of 2019, before the pandemic. Meanwhile, U.S. production has grown by 1.377 million bpd, according to the most recent EIA data published Friday.
The number of oil rigs rose by 2 to 500. Oil rigs are now down by 121 compared to this time last year. The number of gas rigs stayed the same this week at 120, a loss of 36 active gas rigs from this time last year. Miscellaneous rigs stayed the same at 2.
Primary Vision’s Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing unfinished, fell by 13 in the week to December 22 to 252—it is also 13 below the frac spread from a year ago.
Oil prices were trading up on Friday. At 10:37 a.m. ET on Thursday, the WTI benchmark was trading up $0.27 (+0.389%) on the day at $72.04. This is a decrease of roughly $1.70 per barrel from this time last week. The Brent benchmark was trading up $0.33 (+0.43%) at $77.48 $79.25, but down about $1.70 per barrel from a week ago.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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