QOTD: Peter Boockvar on Oil Rig Counts

I promise the one and only time I'll do this...

I’m not going to make a habit of sending out the weekly rig count data from Baker Hughes as I’ll leave that to the energy analysts but in light of the energy sensitive Dallas manufacturing survey this morning, I’ll do so here. For the week ended Friday, the oil rig count fell by 37 rigs to 1,499. That is still up from the year ago level of 1,382 but is at the lowest level since April. It peaked this year at 1,609 in October and has averaged 1,527 over the past 12 months. For a fuller perspective and before the fracking technology really took hold, the oil rig count topped out in 2008 at 442 rigs. Separately on the week, the natural gas rig count was up by 2 rigs to 340, but that is down 9.1% y/o/y.