North Dakota Rig Map

Every drilling rig turning in the Williston Basin, plotted on one map. The list comes off the North Dakota Industrial Commission's active rig report, so what you see here is what the state has on the board that day, not a number somebody remembered from last month.

A rig shows up here only when the state's list gives it coordinates, so on a day when a rig has just spudded and has no location on it yet, the map plots fewer than the state counts. Where that happens the panel says so, and the full count is always on the rig count page.

Search it by operator, by rig, or by county. If you are trying to work out who is drilling near Watford City, which contractor has iron in Dunn County, or whether a company is actually running rigs before you put an application in with them, this is the fastest way to check.

Rig count is the number that moves first. A rig turning means somebody already signed the contract and committed the money, and it means water, roustabouts, hot oil, vac trucks and wireline all follow behind it. When you want to know what a seat pays once that work shows up, the North Dakota pay index breaks it out by role, the rig count shows who is running what, and this week's open jobs are on the board.