In the week ended February 19, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 413, compared with 439 in the prior week and 1,019 a year ago. Including 101 other rigs drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 514 working rigs in the country, down 27 week over week, and down 796 year over year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count released on Friday.

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil for March delivery traded down about 3.4% on Friday to settle at $29.72, a rise of about 1% for the week. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last Wednesday that crude supplies had increased by 2.1 million barrels in the week ended February 12 and that gasoline supplies had risen by 3 million barrels.

Higher prices early last week following discussions of a production freeze among several producing nations, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, gave way to the reality that Iran won’t agree and that production in January, the production baseline, was at a record-high in Russia and not far behind in Saudi Arabia. The discussions were never more than a sop to Venezuela and other OPEC member nations that have been hit hard by the long period of low crude oil prices.

The Saudis and the Russians now know that a price of $40 a barrel is one that will ratchet up production in the United States again because most U.S. onshore producers can actually make a (small) profit at the price. The Saudi/OPEC plan to cut prices and secure market share to drive marginal producers out is working, but it took longer than the cartel expected. From the Saudis’ point of view, now is not the time to cave in.

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States is down by 606 year over year and down by 26 week over week. The natural gas rig count dropped by one, from 102 to 101. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 188 year over year. Natural gas for March delivery closed the week at $1.81 per million BTUs, down more than 8% from $1.97 at the end of the prior week.

U.S. refineries ran at 88.3% of capacity, a week-over-week increase of about 338,000 barrels a day. Imports rose to around 7.8 million barrels a day in the week, a week-over-week increase of 795,000 barrels a day.

Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) weekly Commitments of Traders report — added 11,434 short contracts last week and dumped 3,108 long contracts. The movement reflects changes as of the February 16 settlement date. Managed money holds 267,102 long positions, compared with 209,241 short positions. Open interest totaled 1,840,051. There were 74 hedge funds with large short positions last week, a decrease of three compared with the prior week.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs by more than two to one, 433,625 to 182,897. The number of short positions fell by 30,884 contracts last week and longs fell by 29,066 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 187,672 shorts versus 269,405 longs. Swaps dealers dropped 474 contracts from their short positions last week and added 29,599 long contracts. Remember, someone has to take the other side of all those short bets.

Among the states, Texas dropped 12 rigs last week, while North Dakota and Oklahoma dropped three each. Louisiana lost two rigs and Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Wyoming lost one each. No state added a rig.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count fell by seven to a total of 165. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas dropped four to a new total of 54, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 36 working rigs, down three from the prior week.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $26.09 per barrel for WTI and a February 20 price of $19.35 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $26.04. The price for all three crude varieties rose by $0.20 a barrel last week.

The pump price of gasoline rose by about 1.1 week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $1.717 a gallon, up from $1.698 a week ago.

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