US oil and gas rig count drops to lowest level in 18-weeks

The number of rigs extracting crude oil and natural gas in the US fell by one to 631 last week - its lowest level since February 2022, Baker Hughes has reported.

PHOTO: Drill rig in northern West Virginia's Marcellus shale formation. Getty Images

The rig count fell for the fourth month in a row and for the seventeenth time in the last 18 weeks. The total rig count fell by 26 rigs from July to August.

However, the number of oil rigs remained unchanged at 512 last week. The gas rig count fell by one to 114 – the lowest since January 2022. There were also five miscellaneous rigs in operation.

The total oil and gas rig count in the Permian Basin in Texas - the biggest US oil field – also dropped by one to 319, their lowest since March 2022.

The total US rig count is down by 129 from a year earlier.

By Debarati Bhattacharjee

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