The Bakken-Three Forks rig count drops by two this week with Baker Hughes reporting 31 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday..
In recent Bakken news, Whiting Petroleum has announced its intention to sell its Bakken midstream assets to a subsidiary of Tesoro Logistics.
Read more: Whiting to Sell Bakken Assets
A total of 596 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week, a gain of four over last week. 119 rigs targeted natural gas (one more than the previous week) and 477 were targeting oil in the U.S. (three more than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 31 of the rigs active in the U.S. were running in North Dakota.
Bakken Oil & Gas Rigs
Bakken oil rigs were at 31 this week with Bloomberg reporting WTI oil prices increased $4.25 to $51.68 on Friday afternoon. Prices for WTI-Brent also rose to a per barrel price of $54.46. The Bakken has zero natural active gas rig in the area this week with futures trading at $3.46/mmbtu by midday.
McKenzie County leads production in the region with 13 rigs running this week. View the full list below under the Bakken Drilling by County section.
Activity continues to be dominated by horizontal drilling:
- 31 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.