It was in 1987, nearly a quarter-century ago, that Houston-based oilfield services firm Baker Hughes began keeping separate counts of the number of rigs drilling for oil and natural gas.
This week, for the first time ever, the number of oil rigs topped 1,000, and Texas has a whole lot to do with that.
The state has 843 rigs drilling for oil and gas, accounting for 45 percent of all U.S. drilling activity. Texas has experienced a tremendous resurgence in drilling for oil and accompanying natural gas liquids in West Texas’ Permian Basin, the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas and the Granite Wash in the Texas Panhandle as a result of higher oil prices coupled with technological advances in horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing and seismic technology.
The Texas Railroad Commission, the agency that oversees the oil and gas industry, divides the state into 10 districts. Just one—District 8, which includes the Midland-Odessa area in the heart of the Permian Basin—has more rigs operating than any entire state outside Texas.
There were 258 rigs drilling this week in District 8, Baker Hughes said. That’s 82 more rigs than the 176 active rigs in Oklahoma, which has the highest statewide count outside Texas. There were 163 rigs drilling in North Dakota, home to the Bakken Shale oil boom.
Three Railroad Commission districts with considerable Permian Basin operations—8, 8A and 7C—have a total of 366 active rigs. That’s nearly triple the number operating in those districts in November 2009, when oil prices were substantially lower.
The Permian Basin drilling explosion is a “major, modern boom,” said Pete Stark, a vice president of IHS CERA, the energy consulting firm, in a quote appearing in an article Thursday in the Financial Times of London.
Baker Hughes said there were 1,003 rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. this week, a gain of 19 rigs from a week earlier. There were 873 drilling for gas, a gain of three.
Online: www.bakerhughes.com/rigcount
--Jack Z. Smith
Comments