U.S. and Texas erased most of their losses from the previous week in Baker Hughes’ count of active oil and gas drilling rigs for Jan. 17. Texas added 5 rigs for a new total of 401 (396 previous week, 521 previous year), and U.S. added 15 rigs for a new total of 796 (781 previous week, 1,050 previous year). Permian Basin added 6 rigs in the past week (397 previous week, 481 previous year). The report of Jan. 10 showed weekly losses of 6 in Permian Basin, 7 in Texas and 15 in U.S.
Enverus drillinginfo said it still expects U.S. oil production growth to continue, but at a slower rate “due to a slowdown in growth from U.S. shale. The new Enverus outlook for oil market fundamentals for 2020-21 expects total U.S. production growth to be 650,000 barrels per day in 2020 and similar again in 2021… As focus shifts from volume growth to optimizing returns, the 1MMBbl/d growth experienced in 2019 and 1.9 MMBbl/d in 2018 will certainly slow, but not cease.”
Rig counts in other leading states include 105 rigs in New Mexico (102 previous week, 108 previous year), 54 in Louisiana (55 previous week, 61 previous year), 53 in Oklahoma (52 previous week, 126 previous year) and 52 in North Dakota (49 previous week, 54 previous year). Other leading regions include Eagle Ford with 69 rigs (67 previous week, 81 previous year), Williston with 53 (51 previous week, 56 previous year), Haynesville with 45 (45 previous week, 54 previous year) and Marcellus with 41 (41 previous week, 62 previous year).