The number of active drilling rigs in the United States this week rose by 3, according to Baker Hughes . The total rig count rose to 579—a figure that is 233 up from this time last year. Active rigs are still hundreds less than the 790 active rigs drilling prior to the pandemic. The U.S. oil rig count rose by 4 to 475 while gas rigs fell by 1 to 104. Miscellaneous rigs held at zero. The EIA’s estimate for oil production in the United States for the week ending December 10, the last week for which there is data, held at 11.7 million bpd. Oil production is still more than a million bpd less than pre-pandemic levels, although oil production has been steadily increasing since Hurricane Ida struck the last week of August. Drilling rigs have been slowly but steadily increasing for longer–since the previous September, although production […]