Where Have We Heard This Before? Rig Counts No Longer Matter

I can't remember when I first said rig counts no longer matter. And IPs don't matter. Of course, taken out of context, that is not correct. IPs and rig counts do matter, but they don't mean much as stand-alone data points.

I don't follow this company and I have a difficult time following / understanding non-crude-oil BOE production. From the Range Resources 1Q13 conference call:

I mean, we just need to quit talking about rig counts because the drillers are just getting too good too fast. And just like we saw in the Marcellus, we had to quit talking about rig count, and it's really the number of net wells we're going to put online each year. And our plan is still to ramp up activity, but you may not see it near as much in rig counts going forward as we thought earlier on because just in 9 months, they went from almost in half. And we've seen wells 16 days or less, and I predict they'll be a lot less than that a few months from now. So you're exactly right. I think rig count is going to be really difficult to model. We can't even do it internally any more. It's just too – they're changing too fast.

Even though some say "we just need to quit talking about rig counts because the drillers are just getting too good too fast" the metric, at least for me, still holds value, but not as a stand-alone data point.

Maybe more on that later. Kind of busy today.

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One can compare the number of rig counts by operator from today to the number on August 22, 2011. Remember: these are simply snapshots in time, and could change by one or two rigs for any given operator on any given day. (For more historical rig data, see Active Rigs.

April 28, 2013 (big UP movers: BR, CLR, G3 Operating, QEP, Triangle) (big DOWN movers: Petro-Hunt; Statoil [BEXP])

• Abraxas:1
• American Eagle: 1
• Armstrong: 1
• Arsental Energy: 1
• Baytex: 2
• BEXP:  0 (transitioned from STO to BEXP)
• BR:  12
• CLR:  19
• Cornerstone: 0
• Crescent Point Energy: 0
• Denbury Onshore: 0
• Emerald (was VOG): 1
• Enerplus (ERF): 3
• Environmentally Clean: 0
• EOG: 5
• Fidelity:  3
• G3 Operating (Halcon):  8
• GMX Resources: 0
• Helis (now QEP)
• Hess:  14
• Hunt: 2
• KOG: 8
• Legacy: 1
• Liberty Resources: 1
• Marathon (MRO):  5
• Murex: 0
• Newfield: 3
• North Plains: 0
• Oasis:  8
• OXY USA:  7
• Petro-Hunt: 6 (I believe Petro-Hunt sold a significant amount of acreage since last rig update)
• QEP: 8 (bought Helis since last rig update)
• Samson Oil and Gas: 1 (new to the list?)
• Samson Resources: 3
• Sequel: 1
• Sinclair: 1
• Slawson: 4
• SM Energy:  4
• Statoil: 12 (transitioned from BEXP to STO)
• Triangle: 4
• True: 1
• Welter Consulting: 1
• Whiting:  19
• WPX: 4
• XTO:  9
• Zavanna: 1
• Zenergy: 2

August 22, 2011

• Abraxas: 1
• Baytex: 2
• BEXP:  16
• BR:  9
• CLR:  14
• Cornerstone: 1
• Crescent Point Energy: 2
• Denbury Onshore: 4
• Enerplus (ERF): 2
• Environmentally Clean: 1
• EOG: 7
• Fidelity:  4
• G3 Operating (Halcon): 2
• GMX Resources: 1
• Helis: 3
• Hess:  17 
• Hunt: 2
• KOG: 8
• Legacy: 1
• Liberty Resources: 1
• Marathon (MRO):  6
• Murex: 2
• Newfield: 2
• North Plains: 2
• Oasis:  8
• OXY USA:  6
• Petro-Hunt: 12
• QEP: 4
• Samson Resources: 4
• Sequel: 1
• Sinclair: 1
• Slawson: 4
• SM Energy:  4
• Triangle: 2
• True: 1
• Whiting:  17
• WPX: 6
• XTO:  7
• Zavanna: 1
• Zenergy:  4