The number of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the world fell in March due to Canada, US oil services company Baker Hughes said.
On average, 1,793 installations operated around the world last month compared to 1,813 in February. At the same time, the March level is 86 lower than the figure for the same month in 2023.
In the United States, the number of installations in March increased by 2 compared to the previous month and amounted to 625. Meanwhile, in Canada, their number fell by 35 to 197.
The number of drilling rigs in the Middle East decreased by 5 over the past month (to 344). At the same time, in the Asia-Pacific region their number increased by 10 (to 229), in Europe – by 4 (to 118), in Africa – also by 4 (to 115). Latin America still had 165 rigs (the lowest since July 2022).
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 average monthly number of active oil and gas drilling rigs worldwide increased in 2023 for the third year in a row. The figure rose to 1,814, up from 1,747 in 2022.
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.
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