Going up: Louisiana’s tally of active oil and gas rigs shot up by six this week, according to oilfield services company Baker Hughes. The Bayou State’s total tally jumped from 53 last week to 59 this week. Nationwide, the number of rigs increased by 15 this week to 824, The Associated Press reports. A year ago, 450 rigs were active. Baker Hughes says 662 rigs sought oil and 160 explored for natural gas this week. Two were listed as miscellaneous. Among major oil producing states, Texas increased by seven rigs, Alaska rose by three and New Mexico gained two. Colorado declined by two. North Dakota and Utah were off one each. Arkansas, California, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wyoming were all unchanged. The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed out last May at 404.
Rising output: U.S. oil production increased by 60,000 barrels a day in January, the Energy Department says, an early sign of the energy industry’s turnaround this year. FuelFix.com reports the nation’s oil output rose about 1% to 8.84 million barrels a day, with the bulk of the increase coming from Texas and the Gulf of Mexico. Output had dropped the month before by 91,000 barrels a day. January’s increase came against the backdrop of OPEC’s efforts to cut oil production and support crude prices. The EIA believes drillers across the country could raise output to 9.44 million barrels a day this year, up by 630,000 compared to the fourth quarter of 2016. The EIA’s monthly oil-production data, which is based on a survey of oil producers, is considered more reliable than its weekly output data, which is based on a formula that accounts for rig activity, oil prices and other factors. Read more.
Heading south: After President Donald Trump’s election, the flow of manufacturers setting up shop south of the border dwindled to a trickle. Now the pace is picking back up. Bloomberg reports that Illinois Tool Works Inc. will close an auto-parts plant in Mazon, Illinois, this month and head to Ciudad Juarez. Triumph Group Inc. is reducing the Spokane, Washington, workforce that makes fiber-composite parts for Boeing Co. aircraft and moving production to Zacatecas and Baja California. TE Connectivity Ltd. is shuttering a pressure-sensor plant in Pennsauken, New Jersey, in favor of a facility in Hermosillo. Read the full story.
