Four on the floor: The number of rigs actively exploring for oil and gas in Louisiana fell by four this week to 65, according to the weekly tally out today from Houston-based oil services firm Baker Hughes. Across the U.S., the rig count declined by 10 this week to 757. Of those, 564 rigs were seeking oil and 193 explored for natural gas. A year ago, with oil prices almost double the prices now, 1,929 rigs were active. Aside from Louisiana, Oklahoma also lost four rigs, Colorado and Wyoming each declined by three, West Virginia lost two and Ohio declined by one. Texas gained four rigs, Pennsylvania gained two and North Dakota increased by one. The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
Five stars: For the fourth consecutive year, the East Baton Rouge Parish Library System has been honored with the America’s Star Libraries Award from Library Journal, and this year it’s the only library system in the state to receive a five-star rating by the magazine. In the previous three years, the local library system received a three-star rating. Only 85 library systems nationwide obtain the five-star rating, or about 1.1% of the 7,663 systems reviewed by the magazine. The library system has more details on the award and rating.
Help wanted: First-time claims for unemployment insurance in Louisiana for the week ending Nov. 14 increased from the previous week’s total. The state labor department figures released today show initial claims increased to 3,196 from the previous week’s total of 1,807. For the comparable week a year earlier, there were 2,377. The Louisiana Workforce Commission’s unemployment information processing system was offline Nov. 4-7, which contributed to the over-the-week decrease of 632 initial claims for the week ending Nov. 7. This system unavailability also resulted in a larger than usual over-the-week increase in initial claims for the week ending Nov. 14, as those initial claimants who were unable to file the previous week did so in the week ending Nov. 14.
