US rig count down by 13, Canadian rig count drops by 46

Rig count drops to 489 in United States

This week, the rig count in the United States dropped for the ninth straight week.  Repsol photo.

HOUSTON_On Friday, Baker Hughes released its weekly rig count statistics.  In the week ending on Mar. 4, 2016, there were 13 fewer rigs searching for oil and gas in the United States and 46 fewer in Canada.

This is the ninth straight week were the US rig count dropped, according to the oilfield services giant.

To the weekly count reported 489 gas and oil rigs operational in the United States, down from 502 in the previous week.

There were eight fewer oil rigs and five less gas rigs in the US.

Alaska bucked the trend by adding one rig.

Again this week, the Lone Star state saw the largest drop with four fewer rigs, bringing the number of rigs in Texas down to 227 this week from 231 last week.

North Dakota and Oklahoma were both down by three rigs while Colorado was down by two.  Louisiana, New Mexico and West Virginia all reported one fewer rig while Arkansas, California, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming all remained steady.

According to Baker Hughes, at this time last year, there were 922 oil rigs and 268 gas rigs up and running in the US.

In Canada, the number of rigs is down substantially.  Last week, there were 83 oil rigs operational, this week there are 50.  The number of gas rigs also dropped from 92 last week to 79 as of Friday.

During the same period last year in Canada, the rig count reported 150 oil rigs and 150 gas rigs operational.

The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.