Baker Hughes has published its International Rig Count with production numbers for October. This is a monthly rig count and breaks out the international rigs by oil, gas and miscellaneous. Baker Hughes does not include the Former Soviet Union countries in their count or totals. Baker Hughes also includes the US and Canada in their monthly count but they do not break US and Canada monthly totals out by oil and gas.

All rigs were down 85 rigs in October to 2,086 rigs. October 14 to October 15 total world rigs were down 1,571 rigs of 43%.

US total rigs were down 57 rigs in October to 791. October 14 to October 15 US rigs were down 1,134 rigs or 59%.

Canada was up one rig in October to 194. October 14 to October 15 Canada is down 240 rigs or 56.6%. For several years now Canadian rigs have peaked in February. This year it was different however.

Total international oil rigs were down 17 rigs in October t 854. October 2014 to October 2015 total international oil rigs were down 180 rigs or 17.41% but have dropped 21% since last July. Keep in mind this does not include Russia or any of the other FSU countries.

The Middle East rig count has been up three months in a row. They were up 5 rigs to 305. October 2014 to October 2015 they were up only 4 rigs however.

Saudi Arabian oil rigs peaked in April at 81. Saudi gas rigs stand at 54 giving them a total of 135 rigs in the country.

Iraq is one place in the Middle East where the rig count is falling. This is likely due to the ISIS insurgence there.

Kuwaiti rigs peaked in March 2015 at 42 and have since dropped by 10 to 32.

The UAE has doubled its rig count since 2013.

Latin America lost 22 rigs in October. That took them to 272. October 2014 to October 2015 they have lost 74 rigs or 21.39%.

Baker Hughes uses “Latin America” instead of South and Central America. And of course Mexico part of Latin America. Mexico’s oil rigs started declining long before the price collapse. They hit 104 oil rigs in March of 2013 but are now at about one third that amount. They have had 35 oil rigs working for the last two months.

Europe, since last October, has dropped 36 rigs but now seems to have leveled out at 60.

Africa hit 123 rigs in February 2014 and 118 in November 2024 is now down to 69.

Asia Pacific oil rigs have followed the same pattern as the rest of the world, dropping about 24% since last fall.

Historically production has followed rig count with a delay of about one year. The worldwide rig count did not start dropping in earnest until January 2015. I would expect to see world oil production follow a similar pattern.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a bit about a new peak oil book: “Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture“. There is now an excellent review of this book on line: Past Its Peak.

Schneider-Mayerson’s questionnaire drew responses from about 1,750 committed adherents of the peak-oil scenario in 2011. That year now looks like the end of peak oil’s era of maximum public exposure. My own unscientific survey of otherwise well-informed people suggests that the whole concept is less than universally familiar, so first a word of explanation.

The claim that oil production has peaked, or will soon, is grounded in a hard ecological and economic reality: as the pool of oil in a well shrinks, it takes more effort and expense to pump out. The return on investment will eventually hit zero. An enormous amount of petroleum remains underground, but the energy consumed in extracting each barrel will exceed the energy produced by burning it. And once we reach that point on a worldwide scale — as must happen, sooner or later, when the last untapped deposit has been located and exploited — the effect can only be catastrophic.

I found another really good peak oil book on Amazon:

The Third Curve – The End of Growth as we know it

This book is a little dated, published in 2013 and is available on Kindle only for $7.99. But I found it an excellent and very easy read. If you have Kindle on your computer then you know you cannot copy and past from it. But Windows Snipping Tool works just fine. From the book:

My next post will very likely be Thursday, November 12th, after the OPEC MOMR comes out.