Barnett Shale: The drill is still gone

For the third straight week, no rigs were drilling in the Barnett Shale.

But don’t despair. Two rigs were waiting for things to dry out so they can move onto their locations, according to RigData, the industry publication that tracks drilling in the Barnett Shale.

“There are two rigs, but they are not drilling at the moment due to the weather,” said Mary Jane Arias, senior lead editorial assistant at RigData. She said their report is based on active rigs.

Last week, RigData reported that for two straight weeks there were no rigs actively drilling in the Barnett, a mostly natural gas play that takes in about 5,000 square miles in North Texas. The last Tarrant County rig was near Interstate 20 and U.S. 287.

Falling oil and natural gas prices are mostly blamed for the dropoff, along with the allure of richer fields in other parts of the country, such as the Marcellus in Pennsylvania.

In September 2008, there were 194 rigs in the field at one time, according to information printed in RigData and aggregated by the Powell Shale Digest.

Things didn’t look much better nationally, with the overall number of rigs poking around for oil and natural gas dropping by 11 this week to 420, according to Baker Hughes.

There were 332 rigs exploring for oil and 87 for natural gas. One was listed as miscellaneous. A year ago, 905 rigs were active.

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

This story was originally published April 29, 2016 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Barnett Shale: The drill is still gone."