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As if the recent nosedive that oil prices have taken in the last few days wasn’t bad enough—Baker Hughes reported a staggering increase to the number of rigs. The number of active oil and gas rigs increased by 29 to Baker Hughes data. This brings the total number of oil and gas rigs to 975, which is an addition of 234 rigs year over year.

The EIA has just published its latest update to the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), and soon we will get their update to the Short Term Energy Outlook. These are the two documents in which the EIA take a stab at estimating where US production is going, as opposed to where it has been. Weakness in the Chinese economy has hung like a pall on the oil market since the turn of the year and there is nothing putting a floor under the oil price just yet, but to my eyes the decline of US shale production is now well established...

...Fayetteville Shale play officially bit the dust...tight oil horizontal rig count was down by 20...Bakken-Eagle Ford-Permian HRZ rig count was down by 14. The Bakken lost 3 rigs, the Eagle Ford, 4, and the Permian, 7.

The overall US drilling rig count declined 16 units to 848 during the week ended Sept. 11, representing a new low point during the current downcycle, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. With 1,083 fewer units operating year-over-year, the current overall count is the lowest since the week ended Jan. 17, 2003, and remains below the bottom of 876 during the 2009 downturn. The overall drop was again anchored by oil-directed rigs, which fell by double-digits for a second consecutive week (OGJ Online, Sept. 4, 2015). The third straight week of overall declines follows across-the-board gains in monthly average...

As the global energy industry stares transfixed at a spectacular drop in U.S. rigs, Saudi Arabia is ramping up the number of machines drilling for oil and gas despite a sharp fall in the price of crude. Industry sources and analysts say the OPEC kingpin is looking beyond the halving of global oil prices since June 2014 to a time when crude could again be in short supply. Riyadh is therefore keen to preserve what is known as its spare capacity - the kingdom's unique ability to raise oil output quickly at any given moment. But to achieve that, Saudi...

EIA's most recent Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) indicates a change in the crude oil production growth patterns in three key oil producing regions: the Eagle Ford, Niobrara, and Bakken. The DPR estimates, which were issued on March 9 and cover the months of March and April, include the first projected declines in crude oil production in these regions since publication of the DPR began in October 2013. However, with production gains continuing in other regions, particularly the Permian, overall crude oil production in regions tracked by the DPR rose slightly in March to 5.6 million barrels per day. Total production...

More than 40,000 upstream oil and gas jobs in Texas could be lost as energy sector activity here continues to slow, said Karr Ingham, the economist who compiles the monthly Texas Petro Index tracking the industry’s economic indicators. The latest data point that spells trouble for the industry: data released Friday indicating that that the number of rigs operating in the U.S. was down 74 this week, the rig count’s biggest one-week decline in more than six years. “We’re now at the point where there’s likely to be some damage inflicted on the Texas economy,” Ingham said. “I’d sure be...

Must-know: US oil rig counts reached a new 2014 high of 1,423 By Ingrid Pan, CFA - Disclosure • Feb 21, 2014 2:05 pm EST • EOG • OAS • PXD • XLE • XOM Continued from Part 1: Why rig counts show a stable oil and gas drilling environmentOil rig counts increased last week to 1,423, the highest level since 2014 beganLast week, the Baker Hughes oil rig count increased from 1,416 to 1,423, the highest level since 2014 began. Oil rig counts have risen by 45 (or 3%) since the beginning of 2014, with a large part of...

October 28, 2013 Rethinking rig count as a predictor of natural gas productionSource: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Drillinginfo, and Baker Hughes Note: Natural gas production includes volumes that after being produced may be vented, flared, reinjected, separated, or otherwise processed; this is also known as produced natural gas or gross withdrawals. Republished October 28, 2013, 3:45 p.m., text was modified to clarify content. In the past, the number of gas-oriented drilling rigs in a particular region has been a common metric for estimating the production of natural gas. However, technological advances have led the way to the widespread...