Indications have emerged that oil exploration has plunged in the United States and Canada due to decline in investments, hence raising hope for the dominance of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.
Baker Hughes latest weekly rig count indicated that oil rigs deployed for exploration “dropped to 698 rigs, two less than the previous week and confirming one of the worst years in a generation for the US rig market.”
According to Energy Voice, “Rigs targeting crude in the US fell by 2 to 536. Natural gas rigs were unchanged at 162, bringing the total of working rigs to 698. Drillers searching for oil this year idled the largest proportion of their rig fleet since at least 1988.”
It indicated that “Drillers in the Permian Basin of west Texas and New Mexico added five rigs in the last week to boost the total to 217, according to the report. In the Haynesville shale, a source of gas in east Texas and Louisiana, one additional rig was put to work.”
“About 70per cent of the vertical rigs in the US have been dismantled this year, compared with 59per cent of horizontal drilling units, according to the report,” it added.
It maintained that two-thirds of oil rigs in the U.S. have been parked since drilling peaked in October 2014.
The report indicated that in Canada, rig count is down by 43 to 83 rigs, with oil rigs down 32 to 12, and gas rigs down 11 to 71.
It maintained that Canadian rig count is down 125 rigs from last year at 208, with oil rigs down 40, and gas rigs down 85.
