In its weekly release, Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) reported a dip in the U.S. rig count (number of rigs searching for oil and gas in the country). This can be primarily attributed to a decrease in the tally of both oil and natural gas-directed rigs.

The Baker Hughes rig count, issued since 1944, acts as an important yardstick for drilling contractors such as Transocean Inc. (RIG), Diamond Offshore (DO), Noble Corp. (NE), Nabors Industries (NBR), Patterson-UTI Energy (PTEN), Helmerich & Payne (HP), etc. in gauging the overall business environment of the oil and gas industry.

Analysis of the Data

Weekly Summary: Rigs engaged in exploration and production in the U.S. totaled 1,981 for the week ended February 24, 2012. This was down by 13 from the previous week’s count and represents the third decline in 4 weeks.

Despite this, the current nationwide rig count is more than double that of the 6-year low of 876 (in the week ended June 12, 2009) and significantly exceeds the prior-year level of 1,699. It rose to a 22-year high in 2008, peaking at 2,031 in the weeks ending August 29 and September 12.

Rigs engaged in land operations descended by 15 to 1,923, while offshore drilling was up by 2 to 43 rigs. Meanwhile, inland waters activity remained steady at 15 units.

Natural Gas Rig Count: The natural gas rig count decreased for the seventh week in a row to 710 (a drop of 6 rigs from the previous week). As per the most recent report, the number of gas-directed rigs is at their lowest level since September 18, 2009 and is down more than 24% from its 2011 peak of 936, reached during mid-October.

The current natural gas rig count remains 56% below its all-time high of 1,606 reached in late summer 2008, but has rebounded strongly after bottoming out to a 7-year low of 665 on July 17, 2009. In the year-ago period, there were 906 active natural gas rigs.

Oil Rig Count: The oil rig count – which hit a 25-year high of 1,272 last week – was down by 7 to 1,265. Nevertheless, the current tally is way above the previous year’s rig count of 783. It has recovered strongly from a low of 179 in June 2009, rising over 7 times.

Miscellaneous Rig Count: The miscellaneous rig count (primarily drilling for geothermal energy) at 6 remained steady compared to the previous week.

Rig Count by Type: The number of vertical drilling rigs fell by 11 to 606, while the horizontal/directional rig count (encompassing new drilling technology that has the ability to drill and extract gas from dense rock formations, also known as shale formations) was down by 2 at 1,375. In particular, horizontal rig units – that reached an all-time high of 1,185 in January this year – fell by 8 from last week’s level to 1,163.

To Conclude

As mentioned above, the natural gas rig count has been falling since the last few weeks, 224 rigs in fact (or 24%) from the recent highs of 934 in October 28. Is this bullish for natural gas fundamentals? The answer is “no,” if we look at the U.S. production and the shift in rig composition.

With horizontal rig count – the technology responsible for the abundant gas drilling in domestic shale basins – currently close to its all-time high, output from these fields remains robust. As a result, gas inventories still remain at elevated levels – up 40% from benchmark levels.

In fact, natural gas prices have dropped some 47% from 2011 peak of about $5.00 per million Btu (MMBtu) in June to the current level of around $2.65 (referring to spot prices at the Henry Hub, the benchmark supply point in Louisiana). Incidentally, prices hit a 10-year low of $2.23 in late January.

To make matters worse, mild winter weather across most of the country has curbed natural gas demand for heating, indicating a grossly oversupplied market that continues to pressure commodity prices in the backdrop of sustained strong production.

This has forced several natural gas players to announce drilling/volume curtailments. Exploration and production outfits like Ultra Petroleum Corp. (UPL), Talisman Energy Inc. (TLM) and Encana Corp. (ECA) have all reduced their 2012 capital budget to minimize investments in development drilling.

On the other hand, Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) – the second-largest U.S. producer of natural gas behind Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) – has opted for production shut-ins to cope with the weak environment for natural gas that is likely to prevail during the year.

However, we feel these planned reductions will not be enough to balance out the massive natural gas supply/demand disparity and therefore we do not expect much upside in gas prices in the near term. In other words, there appears no reason to believe that the supply overhang will subside and natural gas will be out of the dumpster in 2012.

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