Despite rock bottom heavy oil prices that are making headlines on the national stage, Canada’s active drilling rig count in mid-November is only slightly off its 2017 pace, and substantially better than 2016.
According to Rig Locator (www.riglocator.ca), there were 235 active drilling rigs across the country on Nov. 15, 2018. A year earlier, there were only 16 more rigs, at 219. But two years earlier, there were 184 active drilling rigs across the country.
In Saskatchewan, the rig count is markedly better compared to the two previous years. Nov. 15 saw 61 active rigs in Saskatchewan, while a year before, that number was 43, and in 2016, it was 30.
As of Nov. 21, Saskatchewan had 55 active drilling rigs out of 120, or 46 per cent. That’s above the curve for the country, which has 218 out of 595 rigs working, for a utilization rate of 37 per cent.
For drilling contractors, Precision Drilling had the most rigs working, with 14 turning to the right. Seven were in northwest Saskatchewan, one in west central, two in the southwest and four in the southeast.
Savanna Drilling Corp. placed second, at eight, and all but one were working in west central. The last one wasn’t far away, at Battrum, in southwest Saskatchewan.
Ensign Drilling Inc. came in third at five rigs. Ensign had four rigs working in west central Saskatchewan and one at the Esterhazy potash mines (In the past, there have been reports that Ensign often has more than that at Esterhazy, but usually only one rig shows up).
A total of 25 oil companies were actively drilling. Crescent Point Energy Corp., as per usual, led the pack at 12. Husky Energy had nine. Teine Energy Ltd., Vermilion Energy Inc. and Baxtex Energy Corp. tied, rounding out the top three at four rigs apiece.
Alphabetically after that, the companies drilling, and their number of rigs, included Aldon Oils Ltd. (one), Astra Oil Corp. (one), Burgess Creek Exploration Inc. (two), Caltex Resources Ltd. (two), Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (one), Cona Resources Ltd. (one), Deep Earth Energy Production Corp. (one), Highrock Resources Ltd. (one), Hummingbird Energy Inc. (one), NAL Resources Limited (one), Ridgeback Resources Inc. (one), Saturn Oil & Gas Inc. (one) Serafina Energy Inc. (one), Torc Pi & Gas Ltd. (one), Turnstone Energy Inc. (one) and Whitecap Resources (three).
