Baker Hughes latest weekly rig count has seen US rigs drop to 698 rigs, two less than the previous week and confirming one of the worst years in a generation for the US rig market.
Rigs targeting crude in the US fell by 2 to 536. Natural gas rigs were unchanged at 162, bringing the total of working rigs to 698. Drillers searching for oil this year idled the largest proportion of their rig fleet since at least 1988.
Drillers in the Permian Basin of west Texas and New Mexico added five rigs in the last week to boost the total to 217, according to the report. In the Haynesville shale, a source of gas in east Texas and Louisiana, one additional rig was put to work.
About 70% of the vertical rigs in the US have been dismantled this year, compared with 59% of horizontal drilling units, according to the report.
Two-thirds of oil rigs in the U.S. have been parked since drilling peaked in October 2014.
In Canada, rig count is down by 43 to 83 rigs, with oil rigs down 32 to 12, and gas rigs down 11 to 71.
Canadian rig count is down 125 rigs from last year at 208, with oil rigs down 40, and gas rigs down 85.