April sees steep decline in worldwide offshore rig count

The worldwide offshore rig count in April 2020 dropped 28 rigs year-over-year and 19 rigs sequentially, according to rig count reports by Baker Hughes.

Baker Hughes splits its rig counts into international and North America rig counts, which combined make the worldwide rig count.

The international rig count for April 2020 was 915 down 144 from the 1,059 counted in March 2020, and down 147 from the 1,062 counted in April 2019.

The international offshore rig count for April 2020 was 228, down 16 from the 244 counted in March 2020, and down 23 from the 251 counted in April 2019.

Looking at separate regions, the Asia Pacific region had the highest number of offshore rigs during April 2020, totalling 96 units – 2 less than in March 2020. This is down 3 rigs from 99 in April 2019.

In the Middle East region, there were 53 rigs active during April 2020, down 2 from March 2020 and down 3 from April 2019.

Latin America is still holding third place in the offshore rig count for April 2020 with 36 active units. Europe has moved back to fourth place with 23, while Africa dropped to fifth place with 20 active units – a large drop from the 30 in March 2020.

The average U.S. rig count for April 2020 was 566, down 206 from the 772 counted in March 2020, and down 446 from the 1,012 counted in April 2019.

The average Canadian rig count for April 2020 was 33, down 100 from the 133 counted in March 2020, and down 33 from the 66 counted in April 2019.

The worldwide rig count for April 2020 was 1,514, down 450 from the 1,964 counted in March 2020, and down 626 from the 2,140 counted in April 2019.

The worldwide offshore rig count for April 2020 was 247, down 19 from 266 in March 2020 as well as 28 from the 275 in April 2019.

Photo by: Rab Lawrence – under the CC BY 2.0 license