An oil pump is seen operating in the Permian Basin near Midland, Texas, US. The Baker Hughes weekly rig count, closely-watched for its hints on production in America’s shale fields, is facing some new competition, says Bloomberg. 
Drillinginfo Inc is offering a daily tally of the total number of US rigs searching for oil and natural gas on its dailyrigcount.com website. The Austin, Texas-based data provider said it has placed satellite-linked sensors on about 90% of land-based rigs in the US to give it timely information from a wider sample size than Baker Hughes uses. The firm has tested its data with hedge funds and found it correlates with the Baker Hughes data about 75% of the time, said Allen Gilmer, 
Drillinginfo’s co-founder, by telephone. Traders who subscribe can use the new data to get an early start ahead of the Baker Hughes tally, which can impact crude prices when it’s released on Friday. “It’s very different than it was in the past,” said Gilmer, a former geophysicist with Marathon Oil Corp.