Bakken Rig Count Down to 79 — Bakken Shale Play

Bakken Rig Count Remains Steady — Rig Count Falls by One

The Bakken-Three Forks rig count fell this week to 79 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.

In recent Bakken news, the SEC froze the assets of North Dakota Developments, LLC (“NDD”) and its principles, claiming they defrauded over 980 investors from 66 different countries of $62 million dollars intended to go towards Bakken man camps.

The U.S. rig count fell by six, ending with 888 rigs running by midday Friday. A total of 223 rigs were targeting natural gas (an increase of two from the previous week) and 660 were targeting oil in the U.S. (eight less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.)79 rigs are running in the Williston Basin across MT, ND, and SD. 79 are in ND alone.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

The Bakken oil rigs stayed at 79 rigs this week and WTI oil prices continued to climb trading at $59.51/bbl on Friday afternoon, a $.12 increase from the previous week. The WTI-Brent saw an increase of $1.31, landing at $66.70. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures trading increasing to $3.02/mmbtu by midday.

McKenzie County continues to lead development this week at 34 running rigs. Williams (19) and Mountrail (13) counties are the next closest producers. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.

Activity continues to be dominated by horizontal drilling:

79 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
0 rigs are drilling directional wells
0 rigs are drilling vertical wells

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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.