Bakken Rig Count Makes Gains
Bakken Rig Count on the Rise
The Bakken-Three Forks rig count saw positive movement this week as it increased by two to 26 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.
In recent Bakken news, The North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) reported last week that the state's oil output dropped more than 50% in April.
Read more: North Dakota Oil Output Plunges by 50%
A total of 420 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week, a decrease of three over last week. 90 were targeting natural gas (four more than the previous week) and 330 were targeting oil in the U.S. (seven less than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 26 of the rigs active in the U.S. were running in North Dakota.
Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs
Bakken oil rigs were at 26 this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices at $47.64 on Friday afternoon. WTI-Brent saw a slight decrease this week to $48.41. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures trading to $2.67/mmbtu by midday.
McKenzie County leads development with 12 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:
- 26 rigs are drilling horizontal wells
- 0 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.