By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, Mar. 9�US drilling activity climbed for a second consecutive week with 1,158 rotary rigs working, Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday.
That total was a 7-rig jump compared to last week when the US rig count rebounded by 30 rigs, and was still up strongly from 768 a year ago. The number of active offshore rigs increased by 10 this week, officials said.
Regarding individual state tallies, Louisiana reported the biggest increase in the number of active rigs as its count climbed by 7 rigs to 230 rotary rigs working. Oklahoma added 6 rigs with a rig count totaling 137.
Texas lost 6 rigs this week, dropping to a total of 454 active rigs, which was still the highest total for any single state.
New Mexico's count declined by 3 rigs, dropping to a total of 68. Wyoming's count remained unchanged at 51 rigs. Alaska and California added 1 rig each, with rig counts totaling 14 and 32, respectively.
Canada reported 534 rotary rigs working this week, 6 fewer than the previous week but up from 441 during the same time last year.
ODS-Petrodata Group, formerly Offshore Data Services Inc., reported a net increase of 1 mobile offshore drilling rig under contract worldwide this week. That brought the utilization rate to 87.4% of the fleet of 649 available.
The US Gulf of Mexico rig utilization remained unchanged from last week at 88.2% of the region's 211 mobile offshore rigs.
In European waters, both the number of contracted rigs and the total number available decreased by 1 to 93 and 101, respectively, this week. The utilization rate was 92.1% compared with 92.2% for last week.
ODS-Petrodata also reported 248 offshore platform rigs under contract worldwide for an 80% utilization rate. The offshore platform rig count was the same as last week.