The Land Rig Newsletter team acknowledged the first birthday of The Unconventional Drilling Report by comparing the July 14, 2011, issue with the first UDR they published on July 15, 2010. Among the comps:

The summary rig counts for the shale, tight sands, and coalbed methane plays were little changed from a year ago at this time. But some of the individual plays have changed dramatically:  Haynesville down by 59, Eagle Ford up by 104, Barnett down by 28, and the liquids-rich DJ Basin more than doubled while the other three, more gas-prone, tight sands plays all dropped sharply. Oil-directed rigs in the shales and tight sands were up by 88; gas rigs were down by 64.
Rigs drilling horizontal wells jumped by 72, while vertical rigs fell by more than half.

What will the UDR metrics will look like a year from now? First, there will be a very big increase in summary rig counts—starting with the July 28 issue, when the team rolls out data for a large number of new plays—all liquids-focused.

On the surface, drilling in the leading resource plays has all the markings of having entered a lull period. The unconventional rig count has been relatively unchanged for three consecutive quarters, and utilization has been fairly stable near 80% since early February. However, there are serious riptides underneath this relative calm, The Land Rig Newsletter team warns in the latest issue of The Unconventional Drilling Report.

The strongest Q1 currents were felt in the Eagle Ford, where the rig count surged 25% vs. Q4, and the Bakken, where the count was 15% higher. The Barnett, down 12%, and the Haynesville, down 7.5%, provided countervailing currents. Rig markets are likely to remain tight in the Eagle Ford, Bakken, and DJ basins throughout Q2. More generally, the LRNL team expects growth in oil-directed drilling to be in the double-digits in Q2 as growth in liquids-focused plays expands. Also, the LRNL team expects rig counts in dry gas areas, such as the Haynesville and the northeast window of the Marcellus, to extend recent declines during the quarter.