By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, Feb. 8 -- US upstream activity continued to deteriorate with a drop in land drilling for natural gas this week, said officials at Baker Hughes Inc., Houston.
There were 838 rotary rigs drilling in the US this week, 15 fewer than the previous week and down from 1,137 during the same period a year ago. The number of working land rigs was down 20 to 694 during the week. But the number of rigs working inland waters increased by 3 to 21, while the number of rotary rigs drilling offshore during any part of the week was up 2 to 116 in Gulf of Mexico and 123 in all US offshore waters.
For the second conservative week, however, the ODS-Petrodata Group in Houston reported a net decline of four mobile offshore rigs under contract in the gulf. The utilization rate among those rigs dipped 1.7 points to 60.5% with 121 rigs under contract, whether or not they were actually drilling. The number of rigs available for work in the gulf also was down 1 to 201, officials said.
The total number of rigs drilling for natural gas in the US dropped by 16 to 693 this week, said Baker Hughes officials. Those drilling for oil were up 1 to 144, with 1 rotary rig unclassified. Of the rigs still working, 235 were doing directional drilling, 9 more than last week; and 57 were involved in horizontal drilling, a loss of 4 for the week.
Texas led the drilling decline, down 5 rigs with 360 working this week. Oklahoma and New Mexico lost 2 each to 73 and 38, respectively. Wyoming had 46 rotary rigs working, 1 fewer than the previous week.
Louisiana's rig count was up 4 to 164, however, while California and Arizona were unchanged at 26 and 16, respectively.
Canada had 439 rotary rigs working this week, 13 fewer than last week and down from 565 last year.
The number of mobile offshore rigs under contract in European waters was down 1 to 93 out of a fleet of 103 this week. That pushed utilization down 1 point to 90.3% in that market, said ODS-Petrodata.
Increases in other markets cut the net loss of contracted units to just 2 rigs worldwide for the week. Global utilization was down slightly 81.1% for the week, with 531 mobile offshore rigs under contract out of a total 655.