By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 16 -- US drilling activity jumped by 21 units to 1,127 rotary rigs working in the US and its waters—the highest weekly rig count since early October 2001, officials at Baker Hughes Inc. said Friday.
That's up from 845 rotary rigs working in the same period a year ago.
Land operations accounted for the bulk of that increase, up by 20 rigs to 1,003 working this week. The number of offshore rigs active increased by 3 to 101 in the US sector of the Gulf of Mexico and 104 in US waters as a whole. However, operations in inland waters dipped by 2 to 20.
Canada's rig count increased by 75 units to 563 this week, up from 520 a year ago.
Of the rigs working in the US, 980 were drilling for natural gas, up by 23 from the previous week. There were 145 rigs drilling for oil, 2 less than last week. Two rigs remained unclassified. Directional drilling increased by 11 rigs to 288 this week, but horizontal drilling decreased by 3 to 89.
Texas led the advance, up by 17 rigs to 466 working this week. Wyoming's rig count increased by 3 to 71. Louisiana and California added 1 rig each for respective totals of 163 and 26, while Alaska was unchanged at 10. Oklahoma was down by 3 rigs to 146. New Mexico lost 2 rigs to 70.
The number of mobile offshore rigs under contract in the Gulf of Mexico increased by 2 to 120 out of an available fleet of 163 this week, said officials Friday at ODS-Petrodata Consulting & Research, Houston. That bumped up the rig utilization rate to 73.6% in those waters.
In European waters, however, the number of contracted rigs decreased by 1 to 76 out of 98, dipping utilization to 77.6%. Worldwide, the number of mobile offshore rigs under contract remained unchanged at 526, but the total rig fleet decreased by 1 to 655. As a result, the utilization rate for mobile offshore rigs inched up to 80.3%.
