By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 10 -- US drilling activity increased this week, adding 14 rotary rigs for a total of 851 working, officials at Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday. That's down slightly from the 856 units that were drilling during the same period a year ago.
Land operations led the partial rebound from the previous week's loss, up 16 units with 718 active. Offshore drilling increased slightly, adding one unit for a total of 112 working in US waters this week; however, the Gulf of Mexico's weekly rig count was unchanged at 107.
Canadian drilling jumped by 100 rigs to 444 this week, up from 427 during the same period last year.
The number of US rigs drilling for natural gas increased by 12 to 718 units this week. Oil drilling increased by 2 rigs to 129. Four rigs were unclassified.
There were 221 US rigs doing directional drilling this week, 3 fewer than the previous week. However, horizontal drilling increased by 2 units to 59.
Wyoming led this week's increase with 34 rotary rigs working, 6 more than the previous week. New Mexico was up 4 to 48, while Oklahoma added 2 units, for 102. Texas and Louisiana were both unchanged at 363 and 165, respectively. California registered the only rig losses among major producing states, down 2 to 17.
ODS-Petrodata, Houston, reported the number of mobile offshore rigs with work contracts in the Gulf of Mexico fell by 7 to 125 this week, while the available rig fleet increased by 1 to 186. That reduced the fleet utilization rate to 67.2% in those waters, from 71.4% previously.
In European waters, the number of contracted rigs decreased by 2 to 77, while the fleet's size was reduced by 1 unit to 100. That dropped the utilization rate by 1.2 points to 77%.
The resulting net loss of 9 rigs coming of contracts around the globe left 523 rigs contracted out of an universal mobile rig fleet of 656, or 79.7% utilization.