Another loss: Louisiana lost two more rigs this week, bringing the number of active oil and gas rigs to 43, according to Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes. The state lost one offshore rig, bringing the total number to 22, and one inland rig on water in south Louisiana, bringing the total to three. The number of north Louisiana rigs remain steady at 14 while the number of south Louisiana rigs on land remains at four. Last year around this time, there were 70 active oil and gas rigs. The Wall Street Journal reports the U.S. oil-rig count fell by four to 328 in the latest reporting week,maintaining an extended trend of declines. The number of U.S. oil-drilling rigs, viewed as a proxy for activity in the sector, has fallen sharply since oil prices began to tumble in 2014. But the U.S. total hasn’t fallen enough to relieve the global glut of crude oil, experts say. The number of oil rigs in the U.S. peaked at 1,609 in October 2014.
For sale: Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the third-largest U.S. gas producer, is selling assets in Louisiana, Wyoming and East Texas as part of its plan to raise $3 billion, Bloomberg reports. The explorer, based in Woodlands, Texas, is working with different financial advisers to find buyers for each batch of assets, which could fetch $300 million to $600 million apiece, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Assets up for sale are in the Haynesville Basin of Louisiana, Wamsutter field of Wyoming and in the Carthage area of East Texas. The driller said this week it has closed $1.3 billion in asset sales this year and is in the process of divesting another $700 million or more, without identifying them. The company previously announced plans to sell $3 billion in assets this year, in addition to idling rigs. John Christiansen, a spokesman for Anadarko, declined to comment.
Less than expected: President Barack Obama celebrated 74 straight months of private-sector job creation and called on Congress to pass legislation to combat money laundering and tax evasion while addressing reporters at an impromptu news conference today at the White House. “There are folks out there who are still hurting, and so we’ve got to do everything we can to strengthen the good trends and to guard against some dangerous trends in the global economy,” he said. USA Today reports the president called on Congress to increase infrastructure funding, raise the minimum wage, ratify trade deals and pass tax reform.Though the 160,000 jobs added to the economy in April was less that economists had forecast, Obama noted that the economy had created 14.6 million new jobs during the recovery despite headwinds in the global economy.
