Dickinson Press Suggests Active Rigs Will Soon Drop To About 55 -- January 6, 2016

Updates

January 7, 2016: that didn't take long. Active rig count dropped to 54 today. 
 

Original Post

 

I guess we can close this poll, whether we will see less than 55 active rigs by the end of the week. The Dickinson Press is reporting:

The state’s rig count fell to 58 on Monday, with three more rigs scheduled to become idle after crews complete drilling the current well.

The last time North Dakota’s rig count was below 60 was in October 2009 when the state had 55 rigs, said Alison Ritter, spokeswoman for the Department of Mineral Resources.

The results of the poll which was placed just a couple of weeks ago, in which we asked whether we we would see less than 55 rigs by the end of the first full week in 2016 (January 8, 2016):

• Yes: 41%
• No: 59%

It's gonna be real, real close.

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Any Number Will Work

I guess you can get any number you want. BusinessInsider is reporting:

The latest private payroll report from ADP showed a larger-than-expected increase in jobs during the month of December. 

Private payrolls jumped by 257,000, way more than the 198,000 that was expected by economists. 

Job gains were evenly spread across small, medium, and large businesses in December.
By industry, the largest number of jobs were added in the professional/business services sector and trade/transportation/utilities work. 

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, "Strong job growth shows no signs of abating. The only industry shedding jobs is energy.

"If this pace of job growth is sustained, which seems likely, the economy will be back to full employment by mid-year. This is a significant achievement, given that the last time the economy was at full employment was nearly a decade ago."

Full employment? It all depends what the definition of "full employment" is.