The Bakken-Three Forks rig count remained steady this week with 63 rigs running across our coverage area by end of the week on Friday.
In recent Bakken news, Occidental Petroleum Corp. will be leaving the Bakken as it sells its North Dakota oil assets.
Read more: Occidental to Leave the Bakken
A total of 787 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week. 193 were targeting natural gas (one more than the previous week) and 594were targeting oil in the U.S. (one less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 63are in ND alone.
Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs
The Bakken oil rigs were at 63 this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices trading at $44.60/bbl on Friday afternoon. WTI-Brent decreased $2.47landing at $47.99. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures decreasing slightly to $2.29/mmbtu by midday.
McKenzie County continues to lead development with 24 rigs running this week, far outpacing other counties. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.
Activity continues to be dominated by horizontal drilling:
- 62 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
- 1 rigs are drilling directional wells
- 0 rigs are drilling vertical wells
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.
Read more at bakerhughes.com