In the week ended April 24, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 703, compared with 734 in the prior week and 1,534 a year ago. Including 229 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 932 working rigs in the country, down 22 week-over-week and down 929 year-over-year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes North American Rotary Rig Count.

The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 831 year-over-year and by 31 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count increased by eight week-over-week to a total of 225. The rig count for natural gas rigs is down by 98 year-over-year.

Last week marks the third consecutive week with a drop of 25 or more rigs. The pressure on oil field services companies continues, as Weatherford International (NYSE: WFT) announced that it will add 2,000 more workers to its layoff plans, bringing the company total to 10,000. Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) is chopping 10,500 employees, Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE: SLB) is firing 11,000, and Halliburton Co. (NYSE: HAL) has cut 9,000.

As the price of crude approaches $60 a barrel, however, the producers may begin to complete the wells they have already drilled in an effort to boost revenues. We noted on Friday that there are more than 4,700 drilled wells awaiting completion. 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 906, or about 56%.

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Crude prices rose by about 1.7 % last week to close out the week at around $57.15 on Friday. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price for May delivery peaked on Thursday at $58.63, after dropping to $55.73 a barrel shortly before Wednesday’s inventory report. Crude stockpiles grew by 5.3 million barrels last week, but the price increase was likely due to the turmoil in Yemen and another drop in the gasoline inventory.

Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report — reduced their long positions by more than 2,500 contracts last week and dropped more than 23,000 short positions. The decreases reflect changes due to the April 17 settlement date. As of April 21, Managed Money holds 340,036 long positions, compared with 80,750 short positions.

Among the producers themselves short positions outnumber longs, 401,938 to 230,004, and positions among swaps dealers show 388,977 shorts versus 186,067 longs.

The states losing the most rigs last week were Texas (down 19) and North Dakota (down five). Louisiana added two rigs last week and Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kansas and Pennsylvania added one each.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count dropped by 12, to bring the total down to 246. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas lost eight rigs and reports that 1115 are working, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana has 79 working rigs, down five from the prior week.

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As of Friday, the posted price for Williston Basin sweet crude had risen from $45.94 a barrel in the prior week to $46.44 a barrel, and Williston Basin sour had risen from $41.33 a barrel to $41.83 a barrel. Eagle Ford Light crude sold for $53.75 a barrel, up from $53.25 on the previous Friday, the same price as WTI.

The price of gasoline increased over the week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.524 a gallon, up about 3.1% from $2.446 a week ago.

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