A rig sits on a pad site where it will drill three to six wells next to each other at a Chevron drilling and hydraulic fracturing site in July of 2017 in Midland. ( Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle )
Drilling activity continues to inch higher amid faltering oil prices and a lack of appetite by operators to drill.
A week after adding the most rigs in four months – nine – the US rig count rose by three to 503, according to energy services firm Baker Hughes and data analytics firm Enverus. The rig count is 249 rigs higher than the 254 reported at this time last year.
There were 405 rigs seeking crude, up eight for the week and 222 more than the 183 drilling for oil last August. The number of rigs drilling for natural gas fell by five to 97 but is 28 more than the 69 drilling for natural gas a year earlier.
Texas saw its rig count inch downward, dropping one rig to 231 – still 123 rigs higher than the 108 at work statewide a year ago. New Mexico added one rig for 80 active rigs. Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah joined New Mexico as producing states to see additional rigs. West Virginia joined Texas in showing a decline for the week.
The Permian Basin rig count rose by two to 247, 120 more than the 127 active in the region last year.
Lea County, New Mexico, remains the most active county in the Permian with 47 rigs, up one for the week. Eddy County, New Mexico, follows with 31 rigs, unchanged for the week.
Midland and Martin counties each reported 27 rigs, down one for Martin and unchanged for Midland. Reeves County reported 22 rigs, down one. Howard, Loving and Upton counties each reported 16 rigs at work within county lines, unchanged for Howard and Upton counties and two more for Loving County.
Borden County saw no activity this week as its one rig ceased operation within the county.
Enverus Rig Analytics, which has a different timetable and criteria than Baker Hughes, reported the US rig count slumped by four to a total of 573 as of Aug. 18. The count is up 2 percent in the last month and up 101 percent in the last year. At the beginning of August, the DJ Basin hit a 2021 high of 16 rigs, an activity level not seen since early April 2020. The basin’s activity was devastated by the pandemic, hit a low of just two rigs in June 2020 and averaged three rigs in the third quarter of 2020. So far in the third quarter of 2021, an average of 13 rigs have been running. The most active operator is Great Western Oil & Gas with two rigs. The Powder River Basin also saw its activity levels plummet due to COVID. In July 2020, not a single rig was active in the basin. The count has reached as high as 11 this year. Much like the DJ, activity is primarily comprised of single-rig operators. Only Anschutz Exploration and EOG Resources are running more than one rig as of Aug. 18, with two apiece. Rounding out the Rockies plays climbing out of a pandemic hole, the Bakken rig count has risen as high as 24 in the first half of August. Rig levels fell as low as nine in 2020 and did not really start to stage a comeback until the second quarter of this year. Currently, the most active operators are Continental Resources with eight rigs and Marathon Oil with two. All other active Bakken drillers are running one rig each.
Mella McEwen is the Oil Editor for the Midland Reporter-Telegram.