U.S. oil and gas drillers added the biggest number of drilling rigs for a week in six months since September, according to the weekly report of March 15 from Baker Hughes. There were 629 rigs in U.S. – up from 622 the previous week, down from 754 a year ago. Also, there were 316 rigs in Permian Basin (313 previous week, 350 year ago), 294 in Texas (291 previous week, 371 year ago) and 107 in New Mexico (106 previous week, 106 year ago). The counts for Permian, New Mexico and U.S. are 2024 high counts.
Eddy County, N.M., added rigs again to maintain its Permian lead with 59 (up 2 in past week) followed by Lea, N.M., with 45 (down 1), Martin with 35 (down 1), Loving with 25 (up 1) and Reeves with 22 (down 1). Midland’s count grew again to 22 rigs (up 1) followed by Reagan with 15 (unchanged), Ward with 13 (unchanged), and Culberson and Howard with 11 each.
Eagle Ford remains No. 2 among regions with 55 rigs (up 3 in past week, down 15 in past year) followed by Haynesville with 40 (up 2 in past week, down 27 in past year), Williston with 34 (unchanged in past week, down 8 in past year) and Marcellus with 31 (down 1 in past week, down 9 in past year). Louisiana remains No. 3 among states with 48 rigs (up 5 in past week, down 9 in past year) followed by Oklahoma with 44 (down 1 in past week, down 18 in past year) and North Dakota with 32 (unchanged in past week, down 9 in past year). Louisiana’s gain of 5 was the largest weekly increase among states.
Enverus said as of March 12 Occidental operated the most rigs in Permian at 25 followed by Pioneer with 22, Mewbourne with 19, EOG with 18, and Devon and ExxonMobil each with 16. Leaders in permits for 30 days to Feb. 23 were ConocoPhillips with 50, Occidental with 48, EOG with 45 and Mewbourne with 41.