The Bakken-Three Forks rig count dropped by five to 79 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.
In recent Bakken news, the Department of Transportation issued an emergency order on Friday that establishes a maximum speed of 40 miles an hour for certain trains going through high threat urban areas.
Read more: DOT Tells Oil Tankers to Slow Down
The U.S. rig count fell again this week by another 22 ending at 932 rigs running by midday Friday. A total of 225 rigs were targeting natural gas (and increase of eight from the previous week) and 703 were targeting oil in the U.S. (31 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. 78 are in ND alone.
Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs
By midday Friday, the Bakken oil rigs dropped to 78 rigs. WTI oil prices continued to increase this week and were up $1.60 from the previous week, trading at $57.34/bbl on Friday afternoon. The WTI-Brent saw an increase of $1.83 by week’s end, landing at $65.28. There was one natural active gas rig in the area and futures are trading at $2.25/mmbtu by midday.
McKenzie County continues to lead development this week but fell to 32 running rigs. Williams (17) and Mountrail (14) 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
Bakken Drilling by County
Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs
Fracking Companies Likely to Close
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Halliburton Lays off 10% of Workforce
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.
Read more at bakerhughes.com