In the week ended March 13, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 866, compared with 922 in the prior week and 1,461 a year ago. Including 259 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 1,125 working rigs in the country, down 67 week-over-week and down 684 year-over-year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count.

The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 595 year-over-year and by 56 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count declined by 11 week-over-week to a total of 257 and is down by 87 year-over-year.

The week-over-week decline in oil rigs was slightly below last week’s total of 64. Since October 10, when the number of oil rigs working in the United States totaled 1,609, the number of oil rigs has dropped by 743, or about 46%.

The price of crude oil dropped by nearly 10% last week, dipping from a Monday start at near $50 a barrel and closing Friday at $45 a barrel. The week’s high price was just under $51 a barrel at about midday Monday. The week’s low price was posted Friday afternoon at $44.69, less than half a buck above the 52-week low. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported last Wednesday a crude oil inventory rise of 4.5 million barrels.

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Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report — added about 1,000 contracts to their long positions and about 5,000 short contracts on NYMEX crude. As of March 10, there are about 301,000 long positions among the Managed Money players, compared with nearly 141,000 short positions. The growth in short positions is less than a third the growth from the prior week.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 331,000 to 206,000, and the difference among swaps dealers is even more tilted toward the shorts. Producers added to long positions in the week to March 10, while swaps dealers added to their short positions.

The states losing the most rigs were Texas (down 37), followed by Louisiana (down seven) and Oklahoma (down five). Ohio and North Dakota each lost four. West Virginia is the only state to add a rig last week.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count dropped by 22 to bring the total down to 311. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas lost three rigs and now has 146 working, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana has 104 working rigs, down four from the prior week.

As of Friday, the posted price for Williston Basin sweet crude had dropped from $33.19 a barrel a week ago to $28.44, and Williston Basin sour dipped from $24.08 a barrel to $19.33 a barrel. Eagle Ford Light crude sold for $41.25 a barrel, down from $46.00 on the previous Friday, the same price as West Texas Intermediate (WTI). The steep price drops indicate that production remains robust while demand is down.

The price of gasoline has begun slipping again. Saturday morning’s average price in the United State was $2.438 a gallon, down from $2.463 a week ago.

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