The Bakken-Three Forks rig count decreased by six t0 145 rigs running across our coverage area by the end of last week.
In recent Bakken news, companies finally caught up with plummeting oil prices and began laying off workers this month. Since November, one company after another announced massive reductions in their 2015 budgets as they have scrambled to cope with the dramatic 50% drop in crude prices since the summer.
Read more: Energy Giants Announce Layoffs
The U.S. rig count fell by 90 to 1543 rigs running by the end of last week. A total of 316 rigs were targeting natural gas (up 6 from the previous week) and 1,317 were targeting oil in the U.S. (ten less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.).145 rigs are running in the Williston Basin across MT, ND, and SD. 138 are in ND alone.
Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs
The number of oil rigs decreased by six to 145 rigs running by the end of the week . WTI oil prices increased by $3.10 from the previous week, trading at $48.24/bbl on Friday afternoon. The WTI-Brent also saw an increase of close to $5 by week’s end, landing at $52.00. Natural gas rigs stayed flat with futures (Henry Hub) trading at $2.69/mmbtu by the end of last week.
McKenzie County continues to lead development with 52 rigs running. Mountrail, Williams and Dunn counties are the only other counties with more than 2o rigs running each. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.
Activity is dominated by horizontal drilling:
- 139 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
- 4 rigs are drilling directional wells
- 2 rigs are drilling vertical wells
Bakken Oil & Gas News
Bakken Drilling 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.