Decline

A 46-unit drop in the Canadian rig count helped drive the North American tally down by 59 in the latest count by Baker Hughes Inc. The start of an early spring break-up contributed to declines in Canada.

Pennsylvania’s employment growth in 2015 fell short of the national rate, a trend that was likely driven in large part by its exposure to the oil and natural gas industry downturn and energy-related job losses, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

April natural gas is expected to open 10 cents lower Monday morning at $1.69 as near-term weather models keep coming up with warmer solutions and indicate a sharp reduction in near-term heating requirements. Overnight oil markets were mixed.

Basic Energy Services Inc.’s well servicing rig hours and drilling rig days continued to slide in December and fall sharply from a year ago during an exceptionally slow holiday period, CEO Roe Patterson said Tuesday.

Total monthly natural gas production from the Marcellus Shale is projected to decline slightly year/year in December and January for the first time since the play emerged as a major gas producing region, according to data from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Drilling Productivity Report (DPR).

The Interior Department said “substantially lower oil and gas prices” impacted royalties from energy production on federal and Indian lands and offshore areas in 2015, resulting in a decline of more than $3.5 billion to states, Indian tribes, the Treasury Department and others.

Fresh from completing a semi-annual borrowing base redetermination, and with an eye on its liquidity, Linn Energy LLC reported a slight decline in total production for the third quarter and indicated that it could spend slightly less on capital expenditures (capex) in 2016.

The United States saw a net loss of four rigs in the most recent county by Baker Hughes Inc. released Friday Nov. 6. That’s a slowing of the decline rate seen in the previous week, but indications are that the count will continue to drop in the weeks ahead.

The pace of decline in the number of active U.S. drilling rigs has slowed a bit, according to the most recent count, but there is still further to fall if the comments of producer and service company executives are a guide.