In the week ended March 27, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 813, compared with 825 in the prior week and 1,487 a year ago. Including 235 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas there are a total of 1,168 working rigs in the United States, down 41 week-over-week and down 939 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 674 year-over-year and by 12 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count declined by nine week-over-week to a total of 233 and is down by 85 year-over-year.

The week-over-week decline in oil rigs was below last week’s total of 41. 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 796, or about 49.5%.

Crude prices rose nearly 5% last week, even though West Texas Intermediate (WTI) dropped nearly 6% on Friday. The sharp rise was almost entirely due to events in the Middle East, centered on Yemen. The U.S. crude oil inventory rose by another 8.2 million barrels last week, and the possibility of an agreement between Iran and a group of six countries, including the United States, over Iran’s nuclear program is viewed as creating an even larger glut of crude when sanctions on Iran are lifted.

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Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Commitments of Traders report — added about 3,000 short contracts on NYMEX crude. As of March 24, there are about 315,000 long positions among the Managed Money players, compared with 173,000 short positions. Long positions were unchanged.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 317,000 to 200,000, and positions among swaps dealers are about the same. Changes among both producers and swaps dealers were nominal for the week.

The states losing the most rigs last week were Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alaska, each of which lost three rigs. In the prior week the rig count in Texas was down 36 and down 18 in Louisiana. Kansas and Pennsylvania each added one rig last week.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count dropped by two to bring the total down to 290. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas lost one rig and now has 137 working. The Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana has 97 working rigs, down two from the prior week.

The rig count decline was considerably lower this week, but the number of rigs still working continues to produce more oil due to better technology and drilling in areas that are more likely to produce better results — the so-called sweet spots.

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As of Friday, the posted price for Williston Basin sweet crude had increased from $29.44 a barrel a week ago to $36.55, and Williston Basin sour rose from $20.33 a barrel to $35.25 a barrel. Eagle Ford Light crude sold for $45.25 a barrel, up from $42.25 on the previous Friday, the same price as WTI.

The price of gasoline remained essentially flat. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States is $2.426 a gallon, up a couple of ticks from $2.424 a week ago.

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