Below is a list of the top 10 most-read stories from 2020 on the MDN website. It is cliche now to say it, but we’ll say it anyway: We can’t wait for 2020 to be over and to put it behind us. We’ve made this article free and open to the public. Feel free to share the link with others who may be interested in a recap of the M-U industry for 2020!
We’ve appended a postscript to each summary to update you on any key developments since that story was first published.
#10 for 2020
Some 47 drilling rigs were idled last week according to data provided by Enverus Drillinginfo. That’s the biggest single-week drop since the final week of December 2015–more than four years ago. The rig count stands at 766. Of the rigs idled last week, 40 of the 47 were oil drilling rigs. Of the 40 oil rigs idled, half (20) were idled in the Permian Basin. The good news is that the Marcellus Shale and the Utica Shale remain unchanged at 38 and 10 rigs, respectively. Rig counts in each basin have held steady for four weeks running. To answer the question posed in our headline, gas-focused drillers are still drilling–in the Marcellus/Utica and in the Haynesville Shale. [As a postscript to this story which we ran at the beginning of the pandemic, the Marcellus and Utica together now average around 38 rigs total, down about 10 from the beginning of the pandemic. The overall U.S. rig count dropped dramatically during 2020 and stands, as of Dec. 22, at 386 rigs. It was a tough year in the oil patch.]