US Rig Count, November 2026: 604 Rigs at a 52-Week High, and the Plateau That Wasn't

The Short Answer

Short Answer: The US rig count stood at 604 in the week ending November 6, 2026, up one rig on the week and the highest level of the past year. Oil-directed rigs numbered 463 and gas-directed rigs 131. A year ago, in the week ending November 7, 2025, the count was 548, so the industry has added 56 rigs in twelve months. The Permian Basin still drives the story at 273 rigs, up 22 year over year. The summer's flat readings looked like a plateau at the time, but the autumn trend is a slow, steady climb: 588 rigs in early September, 598 at the start of October, 604 now. Drilling is recovering, not stalling, and it is doing so while front-month WTI futures closed at $90.83 on November 6 (PetroEyes futures series).

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The Headline Numbers

Baker Hughes publishes the rig count on Fridays, and the November 6 release is the latest in PetroEyes' refreshed rig series. The figures below are from that series, last updated November 7, 2026.

Source: PetroEyes rig-count series, Baker Hughes data.

The weekly change is almost nothing: one rig. The yearly change is the story. Oil rigs account for 49 of the 56-rig increase, which means the recovery is an oil story first and a gas story second. Gas rigs are up only 3 on the year, to 131, after spending much of 2025 in the 120s. Canada is up 32 rigs year over year to 223, even after slipping 3 this week. The North American rig fleet is bigger than it was a year ago on both sides of the border.

The 52-week range frames the current level. Over the past year the US total has ranged from 542 to 604. November 6 sits at the top of that range. The low of 542 came earlier in the year, when the count was still working through its soft patch. The climb from that low to 604 is about 60 rigs, or roughly 11 percent. That is not a boom. The shale boom years added rigs far faster. But it is a clear direction, and direction is what the rig count is for.

Twelve Weeks of Climbing

A single week tells you little. Twelve weeks tell you the trend, and the trend since early September has been up, with only small interruptions.

Source: PetroEyes rig-count series.

Read the table from the bottom up and the shape is plain. The count was 588 on August 7, 593 on August 14 and back at 588 on August 28 and September 4 (no count is stored for the week of August 21), then climbed almost without a down week: 591, 595, 599, 598, 603, 603, 603, 604. The three flat weeks at 603 in October are the closest thing to a plateau in this stretch, and even they were flat at a higher level than September, not flat at the bottom. Oil rigs did most of the climbing, from 449 to 463. Gas rigs moved in a narrow band between 124 and 135 and ended the period at 131, which is consistent with a gas market that is stable but not tight.

This matters because the summer narrative was different. In July, the count was falling or flat, and the natural read was that shale had hit a ceiling: capital discipline, investor demands for returns over growth, and softer prices were keeping rigs on the sidelines. The Permian-focused coverage on this site in the summer documented exactly that plateau. The autumn numbers do not overturn the discipline story, but they do overturn the idea that the count had stopped moving. Operators are adding rigs again, slowly, and they are doing it in the basins that pay.

Where the Rigs Are: The Basin Breakdown

The national total hides big differences between basins. The Permian is still the centre of gravity, and the gas basins are doing something different from the oil basins.

Source: PetroEyes rig-count series, Baker Hughes data.

The Permian, at 273 rigs, is 45 percent of the entire US count. Its 22-rig yearly gain is the largest of any basin and accounts for nearly half of the national oil-rig increase. That concentration is the point. The Permian is where the economics work at current prices, and it is where the rigs go. Our Permian rig count analysis works through the basin-level mechanics, including the Midland differential that sets the local price.

The Haynesville is the second story in the table. At 56 rigs, up 15 year over year, it is the gas basin that is actually growing. Haynesville gas feeds Gulf Coast LNG export terminals, and the 15-rig yearly gain is the largest percentage increase of any major basin. Compare that with the Marcellus, the other big gas basin, which is flat at 23 rigs with no yearly change. The difference is geography and destination: Haynesville gas has a short path to export, while Marcellus gas has to fight pipeline constraints to reach its markets. The rig count is registering that difference rig by rig.

Eagle Ford at 50 rigs, up 8 on the year, is quietly recovering. Williston at 35, up 5, is doing the same at a smaller scale. DJ-Niobrara at 9 rigs, down 1 on the year, is the only basin in the table that shrank. Small basins move the national total by ones and twos, but the pattern across them is consistent: almost everywhere is flat to up, and nowhere is collapsing.

The DUC Buffer: Rigs Are Not the Whole Supply Story

The rig count is often misread as a production forecast, and the correction matters more in 2026 than it used to. A rig count measures drilling activity, not output. Output also depends on how many wells each rig drills, how productive those wells are, and how many drilled-but-uncompleted wells, known as DUCs, are waiting to be finished.

Drilled-but-uncompleted wells are a buffer that lets production rise without new rigs: wells that have been drilled and are waiting on completion crews and fracking equipment. When prices rise, operators can work through DUCs first, which is faster and cheaper than drilling new wells. When prices fall, they can let the DUC count build again. That buffer is one reason the rig count can stay flat for weeks while production keeps moving, and it is why the rig count is a better guide to the direction of supply than to its exact level. Our DUC wells explainer covers the mechanics in full.

The practical consequence for reading this week's 604 is simple: the count says operators are willing to drill more. In a typical soft patch, the rig count falls and the DUC count rises as operators finish fewer wells; a rising rig count is the opposite signal.

The Price Behind the Rigs

Rigs follow prices with a lag, and the price context for this count is strong. Front-month WTI futures closed at $90.83 on November 6, 2026, with Brent futures at $98.32 and a Brent-WTI futures spread of $7.49 (PetroEyes futures series, daily closes). That is a price level at which most US shale is profitable, and it is well above the levels that prevailed in February, when WTI was near $64. The autumn climb in the rig count lines up with the autumn strength in prices: as WTI moved from the low $90s in early October toward $104 at the end of the month, then settled near $90, operators kept adding rigs.

The lag is worth remembering when the price moves. A rig added this week reflects a decision made weeks ago, when prices and budgets looked a certain way. If WTI fell sharply tomorrow, the count would not fall tomorrow. It would flatten first, then drift down over a month or two as contracts expire and budgets reset. The reverse is also true: a price rally takes weeks to show up as rigs. That lag is why the count is a confirming indicator rather than a leading one. It tells you what operators decided a few weeks ago, and it tells you whether those decisions are still being made in the same direction.

The other price that matters is the one operators actually receive, which is WTI minus the local differential. In the Permian that means the Midland-Cushing differential, which our spread analysis tracks alongside the Brent-WTI gap. A $90 WTI headline means less if the local differential has blown out, and more if it has narrowed. Right now the Brent-WTI spread near $7 and the steady Permian rig count suggest local differentials are not a binding constraint, but that is a number to check every week, not assume.

Canada: A Quieter Recovery

Canada deserves its own paragraph because its pattern is different. The Canadian count stood at 223 in the week ending November 6, down 3 on the week, with 154 oil-directed rigs and 66 gas-directed rigs. The weekly dip is noise against a yearly gain of 32 rigs. Canadian drilling is seasonal in a way US drilling is not: the winter drilling season, when frozen ground lets heavy equipment move, is the busy period, and the count typically builds into it. The current level, up sharply on the year, fits a Canadian industry that has pipeline capacity to fill and a supportive price, and the week-to-week wobble is normal for a count that moves with weather and ground conditions as much as with price.

Source: PetroEyes rig-count series.

The Canadian split is worth noting: 154 oil rigs against 66 gas rigs, a ratio of more than two to one, which is heavier on oil than the US split of 463 to 131. That reflects the shape of Canadian production, where oil sands and conventional oil dominate the rig fleet and gas drilling is concentrated in a smaller set of plays. The three-week range of 217 to 226 also shows how narrow the Canadian band has been this autumn: the count is moving by a handful of rigs a week, not by dozens, which is what a mature drilling program looks like when it is neither expanding nor contracting.

What the Count Does Not Tell You

It is worth stating the limits plainly, because the rig count is one of the most over-read numbers in energy markets.

First, the count does not measure production. Output per rig has risen for years as laterals got longer and completions got more efficient, so 604 rigs today produce far more than 604 rigs produced a decade ago. Comparing today's count with a count from 2014 or 2019 without adjusting for efficiency is a mistake.

Second, the count does not measure what is already drilled. Drilled-but-uncompleted wells are the reminder that supply can move without the count moving at all.

Third, the count is a Friday snapshot that gets revised. Baker Hughes revises past weeks as late reports come in, so the exact weekly change is less reliable than the trend over a month or more. The twelve-week table above is the right way to read it: a slow climb with small wobbles, not a single week's plus-one.

Fourth, the count says nothing about costs. A rig added at $90 WTI is a different decision from a rig added at $60, and the count alone cannot tell you which costs that rig faces. The Dallas Fed's survey of the WTI price a new well needs, covered in our shale breakeven deep dive, is the complement to the count for that question.

What to Watch Next

Three things will tell you whether this climb continues or stalls.

The next three Friday releases. One week at 604 proves little. Three more weeks at or above 604 would confirm that the autumn climb has a floor. A slide back toward 595 would say the October flat patch was the real ceiling. The count is released on Fridays, and our rig counts page carries the updated totals, basin detail, and weekly history.

The Permian number. The national count is the Permian count plus the rest. If the Permian holds at 273 or adds rigs, the national total has a floor. If the Permian starts giving rigs back, the national count will follow within a few weeks. The Permian is the basin to watch first every Friday.

The DUC draw. If operators start completing DUCs faster than they drill new ones, the DUC count will fall and production will rise without the rig count needing to move. A falling DUC count alongside a flat rig count is a bullish supply signal. A rising DUC count alongside a rising rig count says operators are drilling for the future rather than producing for today.

The broader context sits on the same site. The EIA inventory analysis shows whether the barrels those rigs will produce have somewhere to go: US commercial crude stocks were 409.8 million barrels in the week ending October 30, 2026, down 0.9 million barrels on the week and 5.3 percent below the five-year average of 432.8 million barrels, with refineries running at 94.5 percent of capacity. A market that is drawing stocks and running refineries hard is a market that can absorb more drilling. That is the demand side of the same story the rig count tells from the supply side.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Baker Hughes rig count?

It is a weekly count of active drilling rigs in the United States, Canada, and worldwide, published by Baker Hughes on Fridays. The US total is the most watched figure. It counts rigs that are actively drilling, not rigs that are idle or stacked, and it splits them into oil-directed and gas-directed rigs.

How many rigs are running in the US right now?

604 in the week ending November 6, 2026, with 463 oil-directed rigs and 131 gas-directed rigs. That is the highest US total of the past year and 56 rigs above the same week a year ago, when the count was 548.

Does a higher rig count mean higher oil production?

Not directly, and not immediately. The rig count measures drilling activity, while production depends on how productive each well is and how many drilled-but-uncompleted wells are finished. Production usually follows the rig count with a lag of weeks to months, and efficiency gains mean fewer rigs can produce more oil than they used to.

Which basin has the most rigs?

The Permian Basin, with 273 rigs in the week ending November 6, 2026, about 45 percent of the US total. It is up 22 rigs year over year, the largest gain of any basin. The Haynesville is next at 56 rigs, up 15 on the year.

Why do gas rigs matter if this is an oil story?

Gas-directed rigs are about a fifth of the count, and they respond to a different price: Henry Hub natural gas rather than WTI. The Haynesville's 15-rig yearly gain is a gas story tied to LNG exports, and it shows up in the same Friday release. Reading oil and gas rigs separately keeps the two stories from blurring together.

Where can I track the rig count each week?

Our rig counts page carries the latest Baker Hughes totals for the US, Canada, and the world, with basin detail and weekly history. The Baker Hughes rig count guide explains how the count is compiled and how to read it, and the DUC wells explainer covers the drilled-but-uncompleted inventory that sits behind the count.

This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not financial advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell any commodity, security, or derivative. Rig figures are from PetroEyes' rig-count series, last updated November 7, 2026, using Baker Hughes data, and inventory figures are from the EIA Weekly Petroleum Status Report for the week ending October 30, 2026. Energy markets are volatile; do your own research and consult a licensed professional before making investment decisions.