The Bakken-Three Forks rig count gained this week, with Baker Hughes reporting 46 rigs running through our coverage area by Friday midday.

In recent industry news, the Department of Energy plans to spend $8 million for a new testing facility to uncover new solutions for unconventional oil and gas recovery. 

Eagle Ford Laboratory Will Test New Drilling Solutions

A total of 946 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week. 181 rigs were targeting natural gas (-7) and 765 were targeting oil (+6) in the U.S. The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.)    45 of the rigs active in the U.S. were running in N.D.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

46 rigs targeted oil in the Bakken this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices at $65.45 on Friday afternoon. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with commodity futures trading at $2.85/mmbtu by midday.

McKenzie County leads activity in the region with 20 rigs running this week. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.

Activity continues to be dominated by horizontal drilling:

• 46 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
• 0 rigs are drilling directional wells
• 0 rigs are drilling vertical wells

Rig Count by County

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What is the Rig Count?

The Bakken Shale Rig Count is an index of the total number of oil & gas drilling rigs running across Montana and North Dakota. The rigs referred to in this article are for ALL drilling reported by Baker Hughes and not solely wells targeting the Bakken formation. All land rigs and onshore rig data shown here are based upon industry estimates provided by the Baker Hughes Rig Count.