US drilling activity jumps to second highest level for this year

Sept. 27, 2002
US drilling activity this week jumped by 23 rotary rigs to 875, the highest level since the first week of this year when the rig count topped out at 883, officials at Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday.

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Sept. 27 -- US drilling activity this week jumped by 23 rotary rigs to 875, the highest level since the first week of this year when the rig count topped out at 883, officials at Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday.

That was down sharply from 1,168 rigs that were drilling during the same period a year ago, 11 weeks after the 2001 rig count peaked at 1,293 units working.

All of this week's gain was in land operations, where the rig count increased by 28 units to 745. The number of offshore rigs in the process of drilling this week was down 2 to 112 in the Gulf of Mexico and 114 for the US overall. There were 16 rigs working inland waters, 3 fewer than the previous week.

The number of US rigs drilling for natural gas gained 16 to 741 this week. Those drilling for oil increased by 6 to 131. Three of the rigs working this week were unclassified. Directional drilling was down 3 units to 232. Horizontal drilling increased by 6 rigs to 64.

Texas led the week's total drilling increase, up 10 rigs with 357 working. New Mexico added 9 rigs for a total of 43 active in that state. California's rig count gained 3 units to 19. Louisiana and Wyoming added 1 rotary rig each for totals of 186 and 44, respectively. Oklahoma's rig count was unchanged at 96. Alaska was the only major producing state with a decline in its rig count this week, down 1 with 8 units working.

Canada had 237 rotary rigs drilling this week, 27 fewer than the previous week and down from 304 a year ago.

Demand for mobile offshore rigs remained relatively flat this week, officials at ODS Petrodata, Houston, reported Friday.

Utilization was unchanged at 63.7% in the Gulf of Mexico, with 123 mobile offshore rigs contracted out of an available fleet of 193. However, in European waters there was a net loss of 1 rig in both the number contracted and the number available for work. That dipped rig utilization to 84.5% in those waters with 87 mobile offshore rigs under contract out of a fleet of 103.

Worldwide, the number of mobile offshore rigs under contract was down 1 to 525 out of a total fleet of 658 marketable units. That put global utilization of those rigs down slightly at 79.8%.