U.S. offshore rig count goes down a notch

After taking a break last week following two weeks of growth, the number of offshore rigs in the U.S. slipped down to 17 units this week, based on Baker Hughes’ weekly rig count report. In line with this, the total number of rigs operating in the U.S. dropped down to 751 from 755 units.

Deepwater Orion drillship (for illustration purposes); Source: Transocean

After the number of offshore rigs working in the U.S. remained flat at 18 last week, Baker Hughes revealed on Thursday, 6 April 2023, that the number of these rigs fell down by one unit this week. However, offshore rigs were up by 5 units on a year-over-year basis.

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Furthermore, Baker Hughes’ report outlines that the total number of active drilling rigs – including onshore and offshore ones – in the United States decreased by 4 units this week, falling to 751, which is higher by 62 rigs than last year’s count of 689 with oil rigs jumping up by 44 units, gas rigs climbing up by 17 units, and miscellaneous rigs being up by 1 unit.

In comparison to the figures from the previous week, oil rigs in the U.S. are down by 2 units to 590 this week while gas rigs slipped down by 2 units to 158 and miscellaneous rigs remained unchanged at 3 units.

Meanwhile, the total number of active rigs in Canada continued its downward trajectory, plunging to 127 rigs, which is 12 units less compared to the previous week with oil rigs going down by 6 units to 52 while gas rigs went down by 6 units to 75.

Moreover, the weekly rig count report underlines that the total number of rigs in Canada rose up by 16 units from last year’s count of 111 rigs. While oil rigs went down by 1 unit this week compared to the previous year, gas rigs climbed up by 17 units.

Rig count; Source: Baker Hughes
Rig count; Source: Baker Hughes