In the week ended July 24th, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. totaled 659 compared with 638 in the prior week and 1,562 a year ago. Including 217 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas there are a total of 876 working rigs in the U.S., up by 19 week-over-week, and down 1,007 year-over-year. The addition is the largest this year. The data comes from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count.

Since the beginning of July, WTI crude oil has dropped from near $60 a barrel to close at $47.97 on Friday, its lowest close in 12 months and just 25 cents above its 12-month low posted earlier in the day.

Crude prices continue to decline as it becomes clear that the supply glut has not been halted. A suggestion by some legislators that the U.S. sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve only made matters worse. The sale would support the federal highway trust fund that Congress has failed to appropriate funds for, and do it without raising taxes. The last time the federal gasoline tax was increased was 1993, when Congress added $0.001 to fund a trust to repair leaking underground storage tanks. The federal gasoline tax rate is 18.4 cents per gallon.

U.S. refineries were running at more than 95% of capacity again last week with daily input of about 16.9 million barrels a day, about 45,000 barrels a day more than the previous week. Refiners have boosted throughput by 250,000 barrels a day over the past two weeks. Imports also increased last week to around 7.9 million barrels a day, about 500,000 barrels a day more than the prior week.

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. fell by 903 year-over-year and rose by 21 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count decreased by 2 to a total of 216. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 102 year-over-year.

Gasoline stockpiles rose by 2.5 million barrels last week even though refinery run levels increased. The concomitant rise in imports likely indicates that heavier grades of crude from Mexico and South America is being brought into the country to mix with the light crude being produced here to create a blend that is less expensive to turn into refined products.

Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report — cut their long positions last week by 18,662 contracts and boosted their short positions by 14,500 contracts. The movement reflects changes as of the July 21st settlement date. Managed money holds 239,438 long positions compared with 125,251 short positions. This is the second consecutive week that hedge funds have dumped long positions and added shorts.

Among the producers themselves short positions outnumber longs, 329,070 to 193,597. The number of short positions last week fell by 23,291 contracts and longs dropped 16,928 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 330,347 shorts versus 208,682 longs. Swaps dealers cut 6,695 contracts from their long positions last week and cut just 96 short contracts.

No states lost rigs last week, with eight states showing no change in the rig count. Texas added 8 rigs, Louisiana added 7, and Oklahoma added 2. New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, and Pennsylvania added one rig each last week.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico the rig count rose by 3 to 245; the Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas rose by 2 rigs to finish the week with a count of 100; and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 70 working rigs, up 1 from the prior week.

Enterprise Products Partners LP (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $44.59 per barrel for WTI and a July 25th price of $38.21 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $44.39. All prices are around $2.75 a barrel lower than they were a week ago, and have dropped by nearly $9 a barrel in the past three weeks.

The pump price of gasoline decreased week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the U.S. is $2.721 a gallon, down about 1.4% from $2.759 a week ago.

ALSO READ: The 10 Most Oil-Rich States

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