By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, Nov. 26 -- US drilling activity continued to trickle away with 986 rotary rigs working last week, 7 fewer than the previous week and down from 1,064 during the same period in 2000, said officials at Baker Hughes Inc. in Houston.
The latest decline was in land drilling operations, with the number of working rigs down by 8 to 832 last week. Rigs working US inland waterways increased by 1 to 20, while those drilling offshore were unchanged at 134, including 129 in the Gulf of Mexico.
There were 814 rotary rings drilling for natural gas last week, 6 fewer than the previous week. The number drilling for oil was down 1 to 172.
Directional drilling jobs were up 4 to 253 for the week, but horizontal drilling was down 3 to 73.
Texas led the decline, down 9 rigs with 400 working last week. Oklahoma's weekly rig count was down 3 to 91, while Wyoming lost 1 to 42. Louisiana, New Mexico, and California were up 2 rigs each to 185, 45, and 38 respectively.
Canada had 254 rotary rigs drilling last week, 14 fewer than the previous week and down from 380 a year ago.
During the same period, ODS-Petrodata Group in Houston reported net declines of one in both the number of mobile offshore rigs under contract and those available for work in the Gulf of Mexico. That dipped the utilization rate to 59.7% with 123 rigs contracted out of the 206 available in those waters.
In European waters, utilization was unchanged at 95.2% last week, with 99 mobile offshore rigs contracted out of 104 available. Worldwide utilization of mobile offshore rigs also was unchanged at 81.4%, with 531 units contracted out of a total fleet of 652.
Much of the decline in US offshore drilling has been among conventional jack up rigs working in the comparatively shallow waters of the outer continental shelf. Earlier this month, the US Minerals Management Service reported the number of rigs working in deep waters of 1,000 ft or more remained at a high of 47, up from 39 at the start of the year. That included a record high of 43 rigs work in depths of 1,500 ft or more, up from 32 at the start of this year (OGJ Online, Nov. 19, 2001).
MMS officials said nine floating rigs were working in ultradeep waters of 5,000 ft or greater at mid-month, up from eight at the start of this year.