Will We See Less Than 55 Active Rigs In North Dakota By The End Of The Week? -- January 3, 2016

I assume the number of active rigs  over the long weekend remained stable mostly due to administrative reasons -- whether anyone was at work in the various offices (oil companies and NDIC) to update the number of active rigs. The number has held steady at 60 through the long weekend.

The big question: will we go below 55 active rigs by the end of the first week in January, less than 55 rigs by COB January 8, 2016? Poll at the sidebar at the right.

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Russia Sets Record, But Annual Crude Oil Production Barely Budges

Back on October 13, 2015, this tweet:

Tweeting now: IEA report says Russia's oil output at 'record high' in first eight months of 2015, up 8.9% on year, on drilling development boom. 

Now, a more complete story from AFP:

Russia pumped a record 534 million tonnes of crude oil in 2015 even as it reeled from a fall in oil prices caused by a supply glut.

The country's oil and gas condensate production last year increased 1.4 percent year-on-year, with output reaching 10.73 million barrels per day, a post-Soviet record.

But the recent renewed slump in oil prices -- with Brent crude falling to an 11-year low last month -- casts a shadow on the prospect of economic recovery.

Russia may be setting records but overall production has been essentially flat since at least 2007 (that's as far back as this graph goes), but if numbers hold, that 10.73 brings the dashed line (Russia) up quite a bit: