BRIEFCASE

Rig counts down again in state, US

The number of working rigs fell by two in Oklahoma this week as it dropped by 10 nationally, Baker Hughes reported Friday.

The national working rig count of 1,016 remained about 2.1 percent more than 995 that were working one year ago. The number of rigs drilling for oil fell to 824, while the number of rigs drilling for natural declined to 192.

In Oklahoma, the working count declined to 109 rigs, compared to 120 a year ago. The number of rigs working in the Cana Woodford basin declined to 52, compared to 53 a week ago.

The most active fields this week, Baker Hughes said, were the Permian in west Texas and southeast New Mexico at 459, the south Texas Eagle Ford at 82, the Marcellus Shale at 65, the Haynesville and Williston, at 57 each.

Trust files report

Chesapeake Granite Wash Trust's payout to unitholders over the past year totaled about $11.2 million, an annual report filed this week by the trust indicates.

The company's holdings are royalty interests in specified oil and natural gas properties that are located in Washita County in western Oklahoma, limited to the Colony Granite Wash formation. They consist of about 40,500 gross acres (26,400 net acres) held by Chesapeake as of Dec. 31, 2018.

Per-unit distributions made the past year were about 8 cents a unit for the period of September 2017 through November 2017, about 5 cents a unit for the December 2017-February 2018 period, about 6 cents a unit for the March through May period and about 5 cents a unit for the June through August period.

Total per-unit distributions for the year were about 24 cents, the report stated.