The Bakken-Three Forks rig count jumped this week by three, with Baker Hughes reporting 49 rigs running through our coverage area by Friday midday.  

In recent Bakken News, the U.S. Census Bureau is reporting that every county in the Bakken Shale region experienced a decrease in population between 2015 and 2016.

Read more: Bakken Shale Counties Losing People

A total of 933 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week, an increase of six over last week. 186 rigs targeted natural gas (one more than the previous week) and 747 were targeting oil in the U.S. (six more than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 49 of the rigs active in the U.S. were running in North Dakota.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

Bakken oil rigs were at 49 this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices dipped to $44.74 on Friday afternoon. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures trading at $3.04/mmbtu by midday.

McKenzie County leads production in the region with 21 rigs running this week. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.

Activity continues to be dominated by horizontal drilling:

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

Rig Count by County

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.