The number of active oil and gas rigs fell again in the United States this week according to Baker Hughes, after a string of losses in the weeks prior, keeping the overall rig count well below year-ago levels for a fourth week in a row.
The total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs in the United States fell by 2 according to the report, with the number of active oil rigs falling 2 to reach 805 and the number of gas rigs holding steady at 183.
The combined oil and gas rig count is 988, with oil seeing a 39-rig decrease year on year and gas rigs down 16 since this time last year. The combined oil and gas rig count is down 57 year on year.
At 10:43am EST, WTI was trading up slightly $0.05 (+0.08%) at $61.75-up on the day, but down on the week as traders struggle to accurately assess the state of the oil market with Iran sanction waivers ending and the China-US trade war taking a turn for the worse.
The Brent benchmark was trading up $0.21 (+0.30%) at $70.60, down slightly week on week.
While the United States has seen a significant drop in the number of active oil and gas rigs, US oil production continues to rise. US crude oil production fell slightly for week ending May 3, standing at 12.2 million barrels, easing off last week's all-time high of 12.3 million barrels per day.
Canada's rig count increased by 2, with the number of active oil rigs up by 5, and the number of gas rigs holding falling by 3 to reach 41. Canada's oil rigs are now down 10 year on year, with gas rigs down 6 year on year.
WTI was trading up 0.50% on the day at 1:08pm EST, with Brent up 0.70%.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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Julianne Geiger is a veteran editor, writer and researcher for Oilprice.com, and a member of the Creative Professionals Networking Group. More
Comments
Production may not be increasing. The increasing trend is only suggested by the unreliable EIA weekly data. If you look at the more reliable monthly data, production seems to be on a declining trend over the last couple of months. This declining trend would align with the trend in rig counts reported in this article.