US land drilling activity continues to climb

March 28, 2003
US drilling activity continued to climb with an additional 16 rotary rigs working this week. That boosted the total US rig count to 962, up from 761 during the same period a year ago, said officials Friday at Baker Hughes Inc.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 28 -- US drilling activity continued to climb with an additional 16 rotary rigs working this week. That boosted the total US rig count to 962, up from 761 during the same period a year ago, said officials Friday at Baker Hughes Inc.

All of the gain was in land operations, up 18 rigs to 842 working this week. Inland waters operations declined by 2 rigs with 16 still working. Offshore activity declined by 1 rig to 98 working in the Gulf of Mexico but was unchanged at 104 active rigs in US waters as a whole.

The number of rotary rigs working in Canada this week plummeted by 165 to 288 as a result of the seasonal spring thaw. However, Canada's rig count is still up from 251 last year, officials said.

Among US rigs, the number drilling for oil increased by 11 this week to 178. Drilling for natural gas was up 5 rigs to 781. There were 3 rigs unclassified.

Directional drilling decreased by 1 rig to 242 units. Horizontal drilling increased by 2 units to 64 rigs.

Texas led this week's increase, up 18 rigs with 428 working. New Mexico's rig count increased by 4 to 67, while Oklahoma was up 2 to 120. There were 12 rotary rigs working in Alaska this week, 1 more than previously. California's rig count remained unchanged at 19.

Louisiana's rig count dropped by 10 units with 151 still working. Wyoming was down 1 to 38.

The number of contracted rigs and the total fleet of mobile offshore rigs available in the Gulf of Mexico again decreased by 1 each this week, an exact repeat of the previous week, officials at ODS-Petrodata, Houston, reported Friday. That dropped the rig utilization rate to 67% in those waters.

In European waters, the number of contracted rigs increased by 1 to 84, while the number of available rigs decreased by 1 to 98. That boosted the rig utilization rate to 85.7% in those waters.

Worldwide, there were a net decline of 1 unit in the fleet of mobile offshore rigs available for work and a net decline of 1 among those contracted. Global utilization dipped to 80.5%, with 530 mobile offshore rigs contracted out of an available fleet of 658.