North American Rig Count Rises to 823 as Canada Adds Three Units

North America finished the week ended Oct. 23 with 823 rigs working, a gain of 3 from the prior week and 74 more than the same week a year ago, according to Baker Hughes' Friday rig count report.

The increase came entirely from Canada. The US count held flat.

Canada put 220 rigs to work this week, up 3 units week over week and up 21 from the year-ago period. The Canadian breakdown:

• 150 oil-directed rigs, up 2 from last week
• 65 gas-directed rigs, unchanged
• 3 unclassified rigs, after 1 additional unit joined the fleet

For US operators, the pattern was stasis with a slight tilt toward oil.

Where the US count settled

The US rig count stood at 603, unchanged from the prior week but 53 units above the 550 rigs working at this point last year. That year-over-year gap of roughly 10% remains the more telling number for service companies pricing contracts into 2026.

The land/offshore split barely moved:

• 589 rigs drilling on land, unchanged
• 13 offshore units, unchanged, including 12 in the US Gulf of Mexico
• 1 rig in inland waters, unchanged

By target commodity, oil-directed rigs rose 1 unit to 460 — a count 40 rigs higher than the same week last year. Gas-directed rigs slipped 1 unit to 132, still 11 above the comparable 2025 period.

What moved at the state level

Among the major producing states, New Mexico posted the largest gain. The Permian's Delaware-side workhorse ended the week with 98 rigs, 2 more than the prior week.

Louisiana added 1 rig to reach 41. On the downside, Utah dropped 2 rigs to 18, while Texas and Colorado each shed a single unit — Texas to 277 and Colorado to 11.

Texas at 277 remains the dominant theatre by a wide margin, though the single-rig decline is noise rather than signal.

What the numbers mean for practitioners

A flat US count with a one-rig oil gain tells contractors and pressure-pumpers that the domestic fleet has found a plateau near 600. The 53-rig year-over-year build explains most of the incremental completions demand seen this quarter, and it continues to arrive without a matching move in gas-directed drilling, which eased to 132.

Canada's three-rig add, all but one of it oil-directed, is seasonal business as usual — late-October activity there firms ahead of winter. The unclassified category growing to 3 rigs suggests a handful of programs are still being classified by target.

New Mexico's two-rig climb to 98 keeps the state within reach of the 100-rig mark, a level that would confirm continued Delaware-basin commitment even as Texas gives back a unit.

Watch next week's Baker Hughes release for whether the US oil-directed count holds above 460 and whether New Mexico crosses 100.