By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, June 14
US drilling activity dipped slightly with 844 rotary rigs working this week, 3 fewer than last week, officials at Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday.
That's down from 1,266 in the same period a year ago when the 2001 rig count was still 4 weeks from its peak of 1,293 units.
Despite the decline in total rigs this week, the number of active land rigs increased by 4 to 723 units. That was offset, however, by a loss of 4 inland water units, down to 13. The number of offshore rigs actually in the drilling process also was down 3 this week to 105 in the Gulf of Mexico and 108 in all US waters.
Canada had 178 rotary rigs working this week, 2 less than last week and down from 320 last year.
Among US rigs still working, 134 were drilling for oil, 1 less than last week. Another 709 US rotary rigs were drilling for natural gas—again, 1 less than the previous week. One rig remained unclassified, down from 2 a week ago. There were 235 rigs doing directional drilling this week, unchanged from last week. But the number involved in horizontal drilling was down 3 to 66.
Texas led the overall decline, down 5 rigs with 320 still making hole. Louisiana and California were down 4 rigs each to 159 and 23, respectively. Rig counts in two major producing states were unchanged: Oklahoma at 107, and Alaska at 11. However, New Mexico's rig count was up 4 to 43, while Wyoming was up 3 to 41.
ODS-Petrodata Group in Houston reported utilization of mobile offshore rigs was down in the two biggest markets and worldwide this week.
In the Gulf of Mexico, the number of rigs under contact was unchanged at 129, but the available fleet increased by 1 unit to 199, dipping the utilization rate to 64.8%.
The number of rigs under contract in European waters declined by 2 to 88 out of 104 available, for an utilization rate of 84.6%.
Worldwide, the number of mobile offshore rigs under contract declined by 5 to 525 out of a total fleet of 657 units, pushing down utilization to 79.9%.
