Friday's Baker Hughes report heralded the end of eight straight weeks of U.S. oil rig gains, which boasted a net change of zero, hopefully subduing, even if just for a day, the volatile oil market that seems to hang on-or sway with-every API or EIA report, and every word from OPEC's, Saudi Arabia's or Iran's mouth.
Meanwhile, Canada saw an increase of 25 oil and gas rigs this week, with a total of 146 sites now in operation. This week last year, the nation had in operation 196 rigs.
Most of the Canadian growth was seen in the oil count, which saw a 19 rig increase. The remaining six rigs contributed to the gas count. Canada's oil rig count has been rising for the most part since the beginning of April, when it reached a low of just eight operational oil rigs-it now has reached a total of 84.
ZeroHedge noted that the rig count brought a "small lift" to Brent barrel prices, though the price stood at $49.61 at the time of the article's writing - six cents lower than when markets opened Friday morning.
The U.S. lost two gas rigs last week, after two weeks of no movement on the domestic count, which now stands at 81.
Last week, all ten added rigs extracted oil, which brought the oil rig count above 400 for the first time since February.
Exactly one year ago, the U.S. hosted 675 active oil rigs and 202 gas rigs.
By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com
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Zainab Calcuttawala is an American journalist based in Morocco. She completed her undergraduate coursework at the University of Texas at Austin (Hook’em) and reports on… More