The Bakken-Three Forks rig count increased this week to 80 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.
In recent Bakken news, North Dakota lawmakers cleared the way to change a 30 year old tax structure that gave some tax breaks for the oil industry have been linked to a price “trigger.” Debate in North Dakota’s House was fierce and ended in a 66-26 vote in favor of cutting the state’s oil tax rate from 11.5 percent to 10 percent.
Read more: Lower Oil Tax for North Dakota
The U.S. rig count fell again this week by 27 ending, ending with 905 rigs running by midday Friday. A total of 222 rigs were targeting natural gas (and decrease of three from the previous week) and 679 were targeting oil in the U.S. (24 less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.)80 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 increased to 80 rigs this week and WTI oil prices continued to climb trading at $58.67/bbl on Friday afternoon. This is a $1.33 from the previous week. The WTI-Brent saw an increase of $.74, landing at $66.02. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures trading at $2.79/mmbtu by midday.
McKenzie County continues to lead development this week and remained flat at 32 running rigs. Williams (17) and Mountrail (15) 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:
- 80 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
- 0 rigs are drilling directional wells
- 0 rigs are drilling vertical wells
Bakken Drilling by County
Bakken Oil & Gas News
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New Bakken Crude Oil Gathering System
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