Bakken Shale Ends the Year with 52 rigs

Bakken Rig Count Remains Steady
akken Rigs

Due to the holiday, we are releasing the weekly rig count post early.

The Bakken-Three Forks rig count fell by three this week landing at 54 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Thursday.

A total of 698 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week. 162 were targeting natural gas (same as the previous week) and 536 were targeting oil in the U.S. (two less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 52are in ND alone.

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

The Bakken oil rigs were at 52 this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices trading at $37.47 on Friday afternoon. WTI-Brent increased $.42landing at $37.73 The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures increasing to $2.33/mmbtu by midday.

McKenzie County continues to lead development with 23 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:

  • 50 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
  • 2 rigs are drilling directional wells
  • 0 rigs are drilling vertical wells

Be sure to visit our Bakken Job Listings to search openings and come back weekly for updates or sign up for alerts - Daily or Weekly Email Alerts

Bakken Drilling by County

 

Bakken Oil & Gas News

Congress Ends Oil Export Ban

Williston Votes to Evict Man Camps

ConocoPhillips To Hold Steady in Bakken

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