Bakken Rig Count Falls to 84

April 17, 2015 Elizabeth Alford

Crude by Rail

The Bakken-Three Forks rig count dropped by five to 84 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.

In recent Bakken news, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is urging tougher standards for oil tankers carrying Bakken crude.

The U.S. rig count fell another 34 to 954 rigs running as of today. A total of 217 rigs were targeting natural gas (a decrease of eight from the previous week) and 734 were targeting oil in the U.S. (26 less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.)84 rigs are running in the Williston Basin across MT, ND, and SD. 83 are in ND alone.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

By midday Friday, the Bakken oil rigs dropped to 84 rigs. WTI oil prices increased $4.10 from the previous week, trading at $55.74/bbl on Friday afternoon. The WTI-Brent saw an increase of $5.58 by week’s end, landing at $63.45. There are currently no natural active gas rigs in the area and futures are trading at $2.63/mmbtu.

McKenzie County continues to lead development this week but fell to 36 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:

83 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
1 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.