There was no change to the number of total active drilling rigs in the United States this week, according to new data from Baker Hughes published on Friday—it is the final count of the year.
The total rig count stayed at 779 this week—193 rigs higher than the rig count this time in 2021, and 296 rigs lower than the rig count at the beginning of 2019, prior to the pandemic.
Oil rigs in the United States fell by 1 this week, to 621. Gas rigs rose by 1, to 156. Miscellaneous rigs stayed the same at 2.
The rig count in the Permian Basin rose by 1 this week to 353. Rigs in the Eagle Ford stayed the same.
Primary Vision’s Frac Spread Count, an estimate of the number of crews completing unfinished wells—a more frugal use of finances than drilling new wells—fell in the week ending December 23. The frac spread count is now 265, down 10 from the previous week. This is 35 fewer crews than a month ago and 21 fewer than this time last year.
Crude oil production in the United States retreated to the 12 million bpd level in the week ending December 23, according to the latest weekly EIA estimates. U.S. production levels are up 300,000 bpd so far this year and just 200,000 bpd versus a year ago.
At 12:37 p.m. ET, the WTI benchmark was trading up $0.81 on the day (+1.03%) at $79.21 per barrel—and up roughly $5 per barrel since this time last week.
The Brent benchmark was trading up $1.02 (+1.22%) at $84.48 per barrel on the day, and up about $5.50 per barrel compared to last Friday.
WTI was trading at $79.14 minutes after the data release, up nearly 1% on the day.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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