World oil, gas rig count fell 7.4% in February, says Baker Hughes

Calgary Herald ^ | March 7, 2009 | Herald News Services

[thackney]

The number of oil and natural gas rigs operating around the world fell 7.4 per cent in February to the lowest level since April 2006, according to data published by Baker Hughes Inc.

Rigs exploring for or producing oil or gas declined by 221 to 2,753, Baker Hughes said Friday on its website. The bulk of the decline was in the U. S., where the rig count fell 233, or 15 per cent, to 1,320. The drop in the U. S. was mitigated by increases mostly in Canada.

The global rig count has fallen for five consecutive months as the prices of natural gas and crude oil have dropped.

Gas for April delivery fell 14.2 cents, or 3.5 per cent, to $3.946 US per million British thermal units at 2:30 p. m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In the U. S., natural gas rigs fell 15 per cent to an average 1,037, their fifth consecutive monthly drop. Oil rigs fell 56, or 17 per cent, to an average 271, in the third monthly decline.

Last month, rigs in Canada rose 36, or 9.6 per cent, to average 413. In the weekly count, Canadian rigs fell by 95 to 299, the biggest drop this year.

[pleasenoobama]

The Democrats finally get their wish.

[Sequoyah101]

And it will keep falling as a man smacked in the head with a club falling to the ground.

The vicious cycle of cheap oil, oversupply, shortage to the point of panic, rising prices to the point of unreasonable and financial crisis will continue.

An industry with a 5 to 8 year major project cycle time (15 years or more including exploration) simply can’t function efficiently, if at all, on price fluctuations such as these that have been.

There is no portable energy source with the energy density of oil. Without giving up personal freedom mobility AND radical changes to our distributed living arrangement...THERE WILL BE NO GETTING BY WITHOUT OIL.

Biomass is a distant dream if not unlikely.

A long term solution toward energy freedom is possible but not overnight and not by confiscatory taxation. Free enterprise will do it and it was on the way with $150 oil. Before you flame to say that oil producers crashed the price to prevent change...don’t be rediculous...the change could not take place quickly enough or with magnitude sufficient to be a real threat. Moreover, the price would have been high, too high as was $150 oil.