US drilling increased slightly this week, though North America's count overall fell, said industry officials Friday.
There were 604 rotary rigs drilling in the US and its waters, said Baker Hughes, Houston. That's a net gain of 1 rig over the previous week and a decrease of 116 from the year-ago period.
In Canada, the rig count fell 2 to 114, which is still up 29 from a year ago, said Baker Hughes.
In the US, there were 584 rigs working on land, unchanged from last week, but down 113 from a year ago. In inland waters, there were no rigs working, unchanged from last week and down 2 from a year ago.
Off the US, there were 20 rigs drilling, up 1 from last week but down 1 from a year ago, said Baker Hughes. Most of those rigs—19 –were in the Gulf of Mexico.
In the US, 103 rotary rigs were drilling for gas, unchanged from last week and down 38 from a year ago. Rigs drilling for oil this week numbered 497, up 1 unit, and rigs classified miscellaneous numbered 4, unchanged from last week.
Rig counts increased in Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, where an additional rig each brought respective counts to 290, 44, and 40. The count in New Mexico dropped by 2 units to end the week with 107 rig working.