Alaska, N. Dakota post gains in rig count

Both North Dakota and Alaska tacked on multiple drilling rigs to account for a small hike in the week’s U.S. rig count.

The number of active drilling rigs nationwide grew only by one overall, but the increases in Alaska and North Dakota helped offset declines in Texas and Louisiana.

Texas lost three active rigs, but that comes one week after Texas gained eight rigs, according to weekly data collected by Baker Hughes, a GE company.

There are now 1,068 active rigs across the country, with more than half of them operating in Texas.

The overall tally of rigs primarily drilling for oil increased by two up to 875. That leaves 193 rigs seeking natural gas.

Out of the 875 oil rigs, well more than half of them — 489 — are situated in West Texas’ booming Permian Basin, which also extends into New Mexico. Texas accounts for 537 rigs overall.

Because of pipeline shortages in West Texas, many companies are continuing to drill Permian wells while leaving more of them uncompleted for the time being until new pipelines come online.

The total count is up from an all-time low of 404 rigs in May 2016.

South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale remains the next most active area after the Permian with 79 rigs, although that number is closer to 100 if additional neighboring counties were counted. Oklahoma’s Cana-Woodford shale is next with 63 rigs. Statewide, Oklahoma ranks second after Texas with 141 rigs. New Mexico follows with 101 rigs.

With this week’s small jump, the oil rig count is down 46 percent from its peak of 1,609 in October 2014, before oil prices began plummeting. However, rigs today are able to drill more wells than before and to deeper depths to produce more oil and gas. That’s largely why the U.S. is producing record volumes of both crude oil and natural gas.