The number of working oil and gas rigs working worldwide grew again month-on-month in August 2018 according to the Baker Hughes, a GE company, (BHGE) monthly rig count, monitored by Kallanish. The rise was due to a monthly increase in the number of international and Canadian rigs. The U.S. rig count, was unchanged on-month, whilst still remaining ahead year-on-year.

The number of rigs operating in the US remained at 1050 following increases in April, May and June and a fall in July. Numbers in Canada grew strongly again m-o-m in August, rising by 16 units to 220.

The North American rig count for the month was therefore 1,270, an increase of 16 (1.3%) m-o-m and still up by 106 (9.1%) y-o-y. The international rig count for August 2018 was 1008, up by 11 from the 997 polled in July and also well ahead of the 952 rigs counted in August 2017.

The worldwide rig count for August 2018 was 2,278 therefore, up by 27 (1.2%) from the 2,251 counted in July and up by 162 (7.7%) from the 2,116 counted in the same period 12 months before.

Internationally, the rig count rose m-o-m in all monitored regions except Asia Pacific. It rose by 6 in Africa to 104 although numbers in the Asia Pacific region fell by 4 rigs to 225. The rig count ticked up again m-o-m in Latin America by 2 to 192. The count in Europe rose m-o-m by 5 rigs to 85. The second largest region in terms of rig numbers after North America, the Middle East, also saw working rig numbers improve by 2 to 402. This was 11 more than in August 2017.     

The BHGE Rotary Rig Counts assess the number of rotary drilling rigs actively exploring for or developing oil or natural gas in the United States, Canada and international markets.