By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 17 -- Canadian drilling activity continued to soar this week. After adding 100 rigs last week to 444, another 76 rigs started drilling this week for a total of 520 working, officials at Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday. That is 93 more than the 427 units drilling in Canada during the same period last year.
US drilling activity, however, decreased this week, as 6 rotary rigs were removed from service for a total of 845 working, That is 24 fewer than the 869 total units drilling during the same period a year ago.
US land operations were down 5 rigs from the previous week, with 713 currently active. Offshore drilling remained flat at 112 rigs working in US waters this week, and the Gulf of Mexico's weekly rig count was unchanged at 107, but down from 122 for the same time last year.
The number of US rigs drilling for natural gas decreased by 6 to 712 units this week. Oil drilling increased by 1 rig to 130. Three rigs were unclassified.
There were 230 US directional drilling rigs active this week, 9 more than the previous week; horizontal drilling, however, decreased by 5 units to 54.
Texas increased drilling this week by 6 rigs, to 369 units, but other US states lost a total of 11 rigs, with Oklahoma losing 5 of them for a new total of 97—down from 102 last week. New Mexico was down by 2 to 46, while four states lost one rig each: Alaska now has 10 rigs working; California 16, Louisiana 164, and Wyoming 33.
ODS-Petrodata, Houston, reported that the number of mobile offshore rigs with work contracts in the Gulf of Mexico fell by 3 to 122 this week, while the available rig fleet remained at 186. That reduced the fleet utilization rate to 65.6% in those waters, from 67.2 % last week.
In European waters, the number of contracted rigs remained constant at 77, and the fleet's size remained at 100, maintaining last week's 77% utilization rate.
Globally, 523 rigs remain under contract out of a universal mobile rig fleet of 656 for a fleet utilization of 79.7%.
