The Number of Oil and Gas Drilling Sites in the World Fell to a 14-Month Low in September
The number of active oil and gas drilling rigs worldwide fell for the second month in a row in September and is now at its lowest level in 14 months.
According to the American oil services company Baker Hughes, on average 1,760 rigs were operating in the world last month compared to 1,788 in August. At the same time, the September level is 93 lower than the figure for the same month in 2022.
In the US, the number of installations in September decreased by 15 compared to the previous month and amounted to 632 (the minimum since January 2022). In Canada, their number decreased by 1 to 188. Thus, North America accounted for 46.6% of the world’s drilling rigs compared to 46.8% in August and 52.6% a year earlier.
The number of installations in Europe during the month decreased by 6 (to 115), in the Asia-Pacific region – by 2 (to 218), in the Middle East – by 2 (to 327), in Africa – by 4 (to 105). At the same time, in Latin America the figure increased by 2 to 175 drilling rigs.
Baker Hughes has been publishing data on active drilling rigs since 1944. At first, the company collected information only in the USA and Canada, and since 1975 – all over the world. Since June 2019, it has included the number of drilling rigs in Ukraine in its calculations, while no recalculation of aggregate data for Europe for previous periods has been carried out in this regard.
The historical maximum in the number of operating drilling rigs was noted in 1981 – 5,624 rigs. The minimum number was recorded in 2020 and was 1,352 installations.
