US drilling activity dipped slightly as the industry moved into the new year, with a total 1,107 rotary rigs working this week, seven less than the previous week, officials at Baker Hughes Inc. reported Friday.
That�s still up substantially from 786 during the same period a year ago.
The big decline came in onshore drilling with 918 land rigs making hole this week, 19 less than the previous week. The number of working inland barge rigs also was down four to 22. But the number of rigs drilling offshore was up 16 to 167, primarily in the Gulf of Mexico.
While overall drilling activity was down during the week, the number of US rigs drilling for oil was up 10 to 244.
Texas and New Mexico each had one less rig working this week, with rig counts down to 420 and 74, respectively. Oklahoma and Wyoming were down three each to 137 and 46, respectively. Louisiana�s rig count was down four to 213.
There were 489 rotary rigs working in Canada this week, up 167 from the previous week and above 404 during the same period a year ago.
Offshore Data Service reported a net increase of two mobile offshore rigs under contract in the Gulf of Mexico this week. That boosted gulf utilization rates to 86.5% with 179 rigs contracted out of a fleet of 207 in those waters.
In European waters, utilization remained unchanged at 87.1% for the fourth consecutive week, with 88 rigs contracted out of a fleet of 101.
Worldwide, there were 557 mobile offshore rigs contracted�down one from the previous week�out of the 647 total available, dipping overall utilization to 86.1%
