U.S. oil rigs rise to 455, up 7% on the year while crude is up about 62%: drillers are barely responding

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States rose by three this week to 455, according to Baker Hughes data published Friday and reported by OilPrice.com. That is 31 more than a year ago. Gas rigs rose by one to 135, and the total count reached 599, up 50 from a year earlier.

In the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oil field, the count rose by one to 270, which is 17 more than a year ago. The Eagle Ford lost a rig and sits at 50.

The number behind the number: price up 62%, rigs up 7%

A rising rig count sounds like drillers are chasing high prices. Measured against the price, they mostly are not. The Energy Information Administration's weekly spot price series puts West Texas Intermediate at an average of $103.54 a barrel for the week ended Sept. 18, 2026, against $63.98 in the same week of 2025.

The price comparison uses the EIA's latest completed week, ended Sept. 18, against the matching week of 2025. The rig figures are this week's Baker Hughes count and the count 31 rigs lower a year earlier. Output is the EIA's weekly production estimate, which fell for a second straight week, from 13.944 million barrels a day to 13.939 million.

So a price that has risen by more than half has brought one extra oil rig for roughly every fourteen that were already running. Production is up about 438,000 barrels a day from a year ago but has been flat for the past three weeks. Companies have not said why in this data. The simple reading is that producers do not trust a price driven by a war and a disrupted Strait of Hormuz to last long enough to pay for new wells. Crude's drop of more than 2% on Friday shows how quickly that premium can move. Primary Vision's frac spread count, an estimate of crews completing wells, did rise by three to 187 in the week to Sept. 18, per OilPrice.

Who this reaches

Fuel buyers should not count on U.S. shale to push prices down soon. New wells take months to drill and complete, and a 7% rise in rigs is not a supply wave. Relief, if it comes, is more likely to come from the Gulf than from Texas. Truck fleets, contractors and delivery businesses paying record diesel prices are the most exposed.

24,679 independent trucking and freight are listed on CheckThisBiz, a directory of 7,704,724 independent US businesses, including 2,868 in TX, 2,828 in CA, 1,916 in FL. Chains and franchises are excluded from that count, so these are the owner-operated businesses that actually apply for funding.

Oilfield service firms in the Permian are seeing more work, but only a little: 17 more rigs in the basin than a year ago. For a crew or equipment supplier deciding whether to hire or buy for a boom, the rig count so far points to steady demand rather than a surge.

Traders watch the count as a lagging signal of future supply. Another month of small gains would point to U.S. output holding near its current level of about 14 million barrels a day. See our crude oil chart for the price side.

Sources: Baker Hughes rig count as reported by OilPrice.com; U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly WTI spot price and weekly crude production; CheckThisBiz. Percentage changes and the year-ago rig count are Chronicle calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.