Baker Hughes reported a 1-rig increase for oil and gas in the United States this week, bringing the total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs to 1,068 according to the report, with the number of active oil rigs increasing by 2 to reach 875 and the number of gas rigs decreasing by 1 to reach 193.
The oil and gas rig count is now 159 up from this time last year.
Crude oil rallied somewhat on Friday, but not enough to erase three weeks of bearish activity in the industry that stripped roughly $10 off barrel prices. The slight uptick on Friday came as confused markets wrestle with two opposing ideas: the narrative that paints the oil market as having oil supply troubles as the Iranian sanctions loom, and poor equities performance yesterday combined with the narrative that future oil demand may not be as robust as previously thought.
At 12:18pm. EDT on Friday, volatile WTI crude prices were up 0.39% (+$0.26) at $67.59. Brent crude was up 0.64% (+$0.49) at $77.37 per barrel. While up on the day, WTI is still down almost $10 per barrel from early October.
Canada’s oil and gas rigs for the week increased by 9 rigs this week after losing 4 rigs last week, bringing its total oil and gas rig count to 200, which is 9 rigs more than this time last year, with a 1-rig increase for oil rigs, and an 8-rig increase for gas rigs.
EIA’s estimates for US production for the week ending October 19 were for an average of 10.9 million bpd for the second week in a row, off the forever high of 11.2 million bpd for the week of October 5.
By 1:09pm EDT, WTI was trading up 0.40% (+$0.27) at $67.60. Brent crude was trading up 0.70% (+$0.54) at $77.42 per barrel.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Leading right up to Baker Hughes' release of the rig count data, oil prices climbed $1.68/bbl off their session lows--well into positive territory (WTI).
Then, after the report was released, there was a surge with WTI soaring through dozens of cents/bbl to be up almost 1% for the session...keep in mind this is on bearish news, following bearish inventory reports earlier this week and last week and the week before last from both the API & the EIA, as well as previous rig count data from Baker Hughes.
For those of you who actually trade WTI, I encourage you to have your trading platform open and look at the Buy & Sell orders for WTI: Interesting how many sell orders that are in the triple-digits vs. the buy orders that are either in the low double-digits or even single-digits; yet prices plow through thousands of sell orders in a split second often.
But the most important point of all is that yes, while WTI is almost $10/bbl off its recent highs, that means that oil was up almost $26/bbl off its 52-week lows...AND oil is being prevented from moving any lower with never-ending headlines of "looming Iran sanctions".