While OPEC is busy shackling its members’ production to its lowest level in six months, US oil and gas drillers have been rolling up their sleeves and diving into the shale patch, adding active rigs for five straight weeks—up until today, when Baker Hughes reported that active oil and gas rigs in the U.S. had fallen by 1.
The total oil and gas rig count in the United States now stands at 930 rigs, up 293 rigs from a year ago, with the number of oil rigs falling by 4 and the number of gas rigs climbing by 3. The number of oil rigs stands at 747 versus 510 a year ago. The number of gas rigs in the US now stands at 183, up from 126 a year ago.
While the US has, at least for one week, seen a dip in the number of oil rigs, Canada came out swinging this week, adding 22 oil rigs.
At 12:17pm EST, the price of a WTI barrel was up $0.18 (+0.32 percent) to $57.22, while the Brent barrel was trading down $0.16 (-0.25 percent) to $63.15.
The Permian Basin lost 3 rigs for the week, and Cana Woodford lost 4. Granite Wash and Marcellus, on the other hand, gained a total of five rigs collectively. Eagle Ford saw no change to the number of active rigs.
U.S. crude oil production continues to climb a weekly basis, placing further pressure on prices. U.S. crude oil production for the week ending December 8 was 9.780 million barrels per day—another record for 2017, and the eighth straight weekly increase.
At 12:12pm CST, WTI was trading at $57.27 with Brent trading at $63.23—largely unchanged from last Friday.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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