In the week ended September 18th, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. totaled 644 compared with 652 in the prior week and 1,601 a year ago. Including 198 other rigs drilling for natural gas there are a total of 842 working rigs in the U.S., down by 6 week-over-week, and down 1,089 year-over-year. The data comes from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count.

WTI crude oil for October delivery bounced to a high of around $48 a barrel last week before settling at $44.68 on Friday, just a nickel higher than its closing price on the previous Friday. The high price came in the wake of the FOMC announcement that interest rates would remain unchanged.

Last week marks the third consecutive week with a drop in the rig count. The differential between a barrel of WTI crude and a barrel of Brent crude has shrunk to around $3.50 largely due to a drop in production. Texas, for example, has cut production by nearly 130,000 barrels a day since April and Gulf of Mexico production is down 90,000 barrels a day. Of the country’s major oil producing states, only North Dakota has posted an increase and that a rather modest 36,000 barrels a day. Between April and June total U.S. production fell by more than 315,000 barrels a day.

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. is down by 957 year-over-year, and down by 8 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count rose by 2, from 196 to 198. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 131 year-over-year.

Gasoline stockpiles increased by 2.8 million barrels last week.

Hedge funds—under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) weekly Commitments of Traders report—dumped 13,012 short contracts last week and added 1,195 contracts to their long positions. The movement reflects changes as of the September 15th settlement date. Managed money holds 260,007 long positions compared with 115,720 short positions. Open interest has decreased by about 1,300 contracts to 1,702,949.

Among the producers themselves short positions outnumber longs, 339,732 to 186,716. The number of short positions last week rose by 16,622 contracts and longs rose by 8,461 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 297,642 shorts versus 211,750 longs. Swaps dealers dropped 2,551 contracts from their short positions last week and cut 6,942 long contracts.

Among the states, Louisiana and North Dakota each lost 3 rigs last week. Pennsylvania dropped 2 rigs, while Kansas and Texas each dropped 1. Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, and Utah each added one rig last week.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico the rig count rose by 3 to 253; the Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas dropped 2 rigs to bring its count to 88; and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 68 working rigs, down 3 from the prior week.

Enterprise Products Partners LP (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $41.13 per barrel for WTI and a September 19th price of $33.83 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $41.08. The price for all grades rose by $0.05 over the past week.

The pump price of gasoline decreased week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the U.S. is $2.297 a gallon, down about 2.3% from $2.350 a week ago.

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