Texas adds another 11 this week
Mella McEwen, MRT.com/Midland Reporter-Telegram
An American flag is displayed at a Double Eagle Energy Holdings LLC oil rig in Midland in July 2020. Photographer: Cooper Neill/Bloomberg
Cooper Neill/BloombergDespite constraints ranging from labor shortages to equipment shortages, US drillers managed to put a significant number of drilling rigs back to work during the first week of April.
Oilfield services firm Baker Hughes, which has issued a weekly rig count since the 1940s, said Friday the US rig count jumped 16 rigs to 689, the third weekly increase and the highest count since March 2020. Friday’s count was 257 rigs higher than the 432 reported last April.
There were 546 rigs drilling for crude, up 13 for the week and 209 more than the 337 seen last year. There were 141 rigs seeking natural gas, up three for the week and 48 more than the 93 counted the previous April.
Texas added 11 rigs for 342 at work within the state, 133 more than the 209 active a year ago. New Mexico was unchanged at 96 rigs. Colorado (1), North Dakota (1), Ohio (1), Oklahoma (1) and Wyoming (1) were the other producing states to see gains during the week.
The Permian Basin rig count jumped by nine – the largest rise since April 2020 – to 332 rigs, 108 more than the 224 counted the previous year.
Lea County, New Mexico, remains the most active county in the Permian with 54 rigs, up one for the week. Next is Eddy County, New Mexico, with 38 rigs, down one for the week.
Midland and Martin counties each reported 32 rigs for the week, a gain of one rig each. Reeves County added one rig for 27, and Loving County also added one rig for 26. Howard County reported 22 rigs, a gain of three for the week. Upton County had 19 rigs at work within county lines, up one for the week, while Glasscock County had 12 rigs for a second week.
Schleicher County saw renewed activity with one rig going to work in the county.
Enverus Rig Analytics’ US rig count for the week ended April 6 was 757, down two for the week. The count was as high as 761 in the last week, which is down 14 compared to the prior week’s peak. The company said activity levels are down 0.3 percent in the last month and up 58 percent year over year.
Enverus said the US added 68 rigs or 10 percent during the first quarter and ended the quarter with 749 rigs. The quarterly average of 731 was up 12 percent sequentially and up 65 percent year over year.
The Permian rose 30 rigs to a first quarter average of 285, Enverus reported. In the Anadarko Basin, the quarterly average of 65 was up nine rigs compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. In Appalachia, an average of 52 rigs were running, up five sequentially. The DJ was up two at 16, and the Gulf Coast added 11 to its quarterly average of 88 while the Bakken edged up three to 33.