The Bakken Shale drilling rig count held flat at 188 rigs running over the past week. That's right in line with the average number of rigs that have been working throughout 2013.

The U.S. rig count is up six to 1,771 rigs running, of which a little more than 10% are running in the Williston Basin. A total of 353 rigs are targeting natural gas and 1,413 are targeting oil. The remainder are drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.).

The biggest news of the week was an operational update from QEP Resources. The company had a four wells each well produce almost 4,000 boe/d from a single pad. You can read more in the article QEP Resources Well Pad Eclipses 15,000 boe/d

Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs

The natural gas rig count in the region held flat at 1 rig running. It's not a Bakken well and it's not a normal occurence in the region, so don't expect much more than zero in the future. Natural gas prices dropped further on the week and Henry Hub futures were trading near $3.75/mmbtu on Friday afternoon.

The number of oil rigs running held flat at 187 in the region. WTI futures increased again this week and were trading near $98/bbl on Friday. Williston Basin sweet crude traded at $84.44/bbl on June 13th.

McKenzie County led development with 67 rigs running. Dunn, Mountrail, and Williams counties are the only other counties with more than 25 rigs running. View the full list below.

Bakken Oil & Gas News:

• BP's Statistical Review of World Energy Trends
• Bakken Wells Completed In June - To Date
• QEP Resources Bakken Well Pad Production Surpasses 15,000 boe/d
• Bakken Oil Terminal Started From Mothballed Ethanol Plant

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

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 and/or Smith Service Co's (Schlumberger) Smith Rig Count.