Rig Count Falls Slightly during Christmas Week
The U.S. rig count fell slightly during the week of Christmas, according to Enverus Rig Analytics. The count is down 3% in the last month and down 54% year-over-year with the biggest loss in the Permian and Appalachian basins. During the week, the Anadarko Basin added five rigs and the Williston Basin added two.
Before the Christmas week, the U.S. rig count has risen every month during the fourth quarter. In spite of the quarterly recovery, the fourth quarter activity is still the lowest it has been since 2014.
U.S. crude traded around $49/bbl this week, which is the highest WTI has traded since February.
Even though the oil contract was down about 20% since the start of the year, it was still up about 160% over the past eight months on hopes global economies and energy demand will return as more governments relax coronavirus lockdowns.
Simmons Energy, energy specialists at U.S. investment bank Piper Sandler, forecast the U.S. rig count would fall from an annual average of 943 in 2019 to 431 in 2020 and 369 in 2021 before rising to 567 in 2022.
Editor's note: Baker Hughes rig count activity was compiled by the company for the period from Dec. 21-23 only.
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