Industry this year kept a close watch over the nearly perfect V-shaped charting of the US rotary rig count calculated and released each week by Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI). A strong indicator of this is that four of the top 10 news stories, based on the number of impressions*, posted to Oil & Gas Journal's Twitter feed for calendar year 2016 thus far were about the rig count.
The US rig count began this year at 664 rigs turning to the right during the week ended Jan. 8, BHI reported. By midyear, the count slid to a nadir of 404 units during the week ended May 27 before starting a slow-but-steady upward climb to reach 593 rigs during the shortened holiday week ended Nov. 23.
Much like years past, other topics covered by the top 10 stories on this year's list spanned the breadth of OGJ's coverage of the oil and gas industry (OGJ, Feb. 8, 2016, p. 14).
During 2016, the other top 10 most-tweeted stories covered topics including the decline of conventional oil and gas discoveries being made outside North America, the dominance of fossil fuels as a source of the world's energy, big-data systems being launched offshore, US lease sales, refinery projects, and plunging investments in North Sea projects.
The list
The top 10 news story tweets posted during the 2016 calendar year thus far receiving the most impressions via Twitter, in reverse order, are as follows:
10. Mar. 24: BHI: Another double-digit decline for US rig count. (The overall US drilling rig count dropped 12 units to 464 units working during a week ended Mar. 24 shortened by the Good Friday holiday, according to BHI data.)
9. May 23: IHS: Conventional discoveries outside N. America drop to lowest level since 1952. (Just 12 billion boe of estimated recoverable resources were discovered from conventional wells outside of North America in 2015, representing the lowest level since 1952, according to IHS analysis.)
8. Mar. 11: US rig count hits all-time low in recorded data. (The overall weekly US rig count dropped to its lowest point in BHI data that begins in the 1940s, and perhaps since the infancy of US oil and gas industry in the mid-19th century.)
7. Feb. 10: BP: Fossil fuels to remain 'dominant form of energy' through 2035. (Global energy demand between 2014 and 2035 is expected to rise 34%, an average of 1.4%/year, with fossil fuels remaining "the dominant form of energy over the period," according to the 2016 BP Energy Outlook.)
6. Nov. 15: BP, GE launch offshore big-data system starting with Atlantis in gulf. (BP PLC and GE announced the startup of Plant Operations Advisor, a big-data digital system designed to improve the efficiency, reliability, and safety of BP's oil and gas production operations offshore. The pilot started with Atlantis oil and natural gas field in the Gulf of Mexico.)
5. Mar. 23: Industry interest hits new low in central gulf lease sale. (Central Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 241 drew 148 bids on 128 blocks from 30 companies, with apparent high bids totaling $156 million, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management reported following the event held in New Orleans.)
4. Mar. 18: US oil-rig count posts first increase in 3 months. (One week after hitting an all-time low in recorded data, the overall US rig count posted its smallest decline of the year thus far, reflecting the first rise in oil-directed rigs in 13 weeks.)
3. May 6: US rig count falls for 20th consecutive week as E&Ps continue to trim activity. (The US rig count dropped 5 units to 415 rigs working during the week ended May 6, representing the 20th straight week of declines, according to BHI data.)
2. Feb. 8: Saudi Aramco lets contract for Jazan refining complex. (Saudi Aramco, through a contractor, let a contract to Bertin Technologies SA, a subsidiary of CNIM Group, to provide gas-leak detection technology to the 400,000-b/d Jazan refinery project now under construction in the southwest of Saudi Arabia, along the Red Sea.)
1. Feb. 23: OGUK: Investment in new North Sea projects plunges 90% in 2016. (Sparking fears for the long-term future of the industry, the UK upstream segment is expected to approve fewer than £1 billion in spending on new North Sea projects compared with an average of £8 billion/year over the past 5 years, according to Oil & Gas UK's 2016 Activity Survey.)
*Impression: The number of times a user is served a tweet in their timeline or through search results.
