The rise in the number of active rigs in the United States continues to slow, with the 5-week average gain for US oil rig count staying in negative territory for the second week in a row. Oil prices showed little reaction, with October West Texas Intermediate crude closing up 44 cents, at $47.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Despite the falling average weekly gain in active US oil rigs, US crude oil production continues to increase, with average production averaging 9.528 million barrels per day for the week ending August 18, up from 9.502 million bpd the week prior.
*U.S. TOTAL RIG COUNT DOWN 6 AT 940
*U.S. OIL RIG COUNT DOWN 4 TO 759
*U.S. GAS RIG COUNT DOWN 2 TO 180
Among major oil- and gas-producing states, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio each added one rig. Pennsylvania and Texas each lost three rigs. Alaska, Oklahoma, and Utah were down by one apiece.
The rest were unchanged.
The 5 most active counties in Oklahoma with rigs running are Blaine (25), Grady (20), Kingfisher (16), Dewey (13) and Canadian (9).
The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981. It bottomed out in May of 2016 at 404.
Compiled and Published by GIB KNIGHT
Gib Knight is a private oil and gas investor and consultant, providing clients advanced analytics and building innovative visual business intelligence solutions to visualize the results, across a broad spectrum of regulatory filings and production data in Oklahoma and Texas. He is the founder of OklahomaMinerals.com, an online resource designed for mineral owners in Oklahoma.
