Baker Hughes reports that US drillers have added oil and gas rigs to their fleet for the first time in 3 weeks.

Baker Hughes, an energy services company, said in a closely-followed report published on Friday that U.S. firms added oil and gas rigs this week for the first time since three weeks.

The number of oil and gas drilling rigs, a good indicator of future production, increased by 1 in the week ending January 23.

Baker Hughes reported that despite this week's increase in rigs the total count is still 32 rigs lower than it was at this time last year.

Baker Hughes reported that oil rigs rose by one to 411 in the past week. Gas rigs, however, remained unchanged at 122.

Oil and gas rig counts declined by about 7% in '2025, 5% a year later in 2024 and 20% a year later in 2023, as lower U.S. crude oil prices encouraged energy firms to concentrate more on increasing shareholder returns and paying off debt than increasing production.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) projections showed that the U.S. crude oil prices would fall for a 'fourth consecutive year' in 2026. Crude production was expected to drop from a record 13,61 million barrels a day (bpd), in 2025, to approximately 13.59 million in 2026.

The EIA predicted that gas production would increase from a record of 107.4 billion cubic foot per day (bcfd), in 2025, to 108.8 Bcfd by 2026. This was despite the fact that spot prices for the Henry Hub benchmark are expected to fall about 2%. Reporting by Scott DiSavino, New York; Anushree mukherjee, Bengaluru. Editing by David Gregorio

(source: Reuters)