By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, May 4 -- US drilling activity continued to increase with 1,217 rotary rigs working this week, 5 more than the previous week and up from 833 during the same period last year, officials at Baker Hughes Inc., Houston, reported Friday.
Of the rigs working in the US and its waters, 971 were drilling for natural gas, 244 for oil and two were unclassified.
There were 494 rotary rigs working in Texas this week, up 10 from the previous week. Louisiana's rig count increased by 6 to 235 and Oklahoma's was unchanged at 140. New Mexico's rig count was down 6 to 75, while Wyoming had 55 rotary rigs working, 3 more than the previous week.
Canada had 210 rigs making hole this week. That's 22 more than the previous week and up from 170 a year ago.
Worldwide utilization of mobile offshore rigs continued to improve for the 11th consecutive week, said officials at the ODS-Petrodata Group in Houston.
The number of mobile offshore rigs under contract in the Gulf of Mexico increased by 1 to 192 this week out of the 211 units available. That raised the utilization rate a half-point to 91% in those waters.
One more rig is under contract in European waters for a total of 95 out of the 101 available. Utilization in that market now stands at 94.1%.
Worldwide, there was a net increase of 1 rig under contract. Global utilization inched up to 90.4% with 587 mobile offshore rigs now contracted out of a total fleet of 649. Since Feb. 23, worldwide demand for mobile offshore rigs has increased by 25 units, said ODS-Petrodata officials.
Of the 312 offshore platform rigs marketed worldwide, 248 are under contract, for 80% utilization, they said.