Aenert news. Energy Market & Energy Statistics
As every year, Baker Hughes has published 2022 rig counts for major regions and countries on its website in January.
A change in the number of rigs may be indicative of the level of business activity in the oil and gas sector and form the basis for forecasting future oil and gas production.

After a staggering 38% decline in the number of active rigs in 2020, the global rig count has stabilized in 2021 with a total of 1,361 rigs in the world.

The year 2022 brought the long-awaited positive results, as the rig count was up 28% and the total number of rigs reached 1,747. In the last ten years, such a leap was observed only in 2017. Nevertheless, this figure is a far from the peak values  of 2017-2019 and even more so from the fat years of the beginning of the last decade, when the number of rigs was almost twice as high as the current numbers.

Worldwide Rig Count 2012-2022



Source: Baker Hughes

In 2022, growth was observed in all regions of the world, except Europe. The leader here was the United States, where the number of rigs increased from 475 to 721, or more than 50%. In other regions, growth was more modest. For example, in Latin America it was 22%, in Canada 34%, and in Asia Pacific 7%. Of course, drilling indicators in the Middle East are very important for oil and gas production in the world. Here, the number of rigs has increased by 16% from 265 to 308.

In general, the global rig count curve by Baker Hughes methodology is determined, as before, mainly by data from the USA, where the largest number of rigs is concentrated and the changes are the most dynamic. In January 2021, for example, the U.S. accounted for 37% of the total number of rigs, and in December of that year it had already reached 42%.

Trinidad and Tobago, Gulf of Paria



It should be noted that the number of rigs from January to December 2022 increased very significantly, from 1,632 to 1,834, or by 12%.

Despite the fact that the given data do not take into account all regions of the world, it shows a marked rebound in global oil and gas production activity, although the outlined trends need additional confirmation and the absolute indicators of the number of drilling rigs are still far from the peak values for the last ten years.

By the Editorial Board