HOUSTON, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- The number of active drilling rigs in the United States decreased by four to 1,047 this week, or 69 more than the 978 rigs during the same period in 2018, showed weekly data released by Baker Hughes on Friday.
Oil rigs in the country dropped four units to 853 this week ended on Friday, and more than half of the oil rigs were located in the Permian Basin region of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, it said. The number of rigs drilling for gas remained unchanged at 194 this week.
Compared with last week, there are two fewer rigs drilling on land, bringing the total number to 1,026. The number of inland waters drilling rigs were unchanged at two rigs working this week.
According to the Drilling Productivity Report released Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the average new-well oil production per rig in the country will rise from 656 barrels a day in February to 661 barrels per day in March.
The EIA also reported last week that U.S. daily average crude oil production was 12 million barrels in January, up 90,000 barrels per day from December 2018. Since 2010, U.S. crude oil production has been growing thanks to the output surge of shale oil, a kind of light tight oil contained in petroleum-bearing formations of low permeability, often shale or tight sandstone.
