Hedge Funds Add to Long Positions as Oil Rig Count Drops by 42

The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 757 year-over-year and by 42 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count increased by three week-over-week to a total of 225, but it is down by 85 year-over-year.

The week-over-week decline in oil rigs jumped again last week after two weeks with far smaller reductions. 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 849, or about 53%.

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Crude prices rose about 5% last week to close out the week at around $51.77 on Friday. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price for May delivery peaked at just above $54.00 on Tuesday and tumbled by around $2 a barrel following Wednesday’s inventory report. Crude stockpiles grew by 10.9 million barrels last week. After dipping to around $50 on Friday, prices pushed higher primarily due to the large drop in the weekly rig count.

Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report — added another 10,000 long contracts on NYMEX crude and cut short positions by 30,000 contracts. As of April 7, Managed Money holds 335,452 long positions compared with 119,031 short positions.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 339,816 to 202,543, and positions among swaps dealers show 321,973 shorts versus 215,418 longs.

The states losing the most rigs last week were Texas (down 29), Oklahoma (down four) and North Dakota (down two). Arkansas and Kansas each added one rig last week.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count dropped by 21 to bring the total down to 264. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas lost 12 rigs and reports that 125 are working, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana has 89 working rigs, down two from the prior week.

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As of Thursday, the posted price for Williston Basin sweet crude remained unchanged from $32.94 a barrel in the prior week, and Williston Basin sour slipped from $23.83 a barrel to $23.33. Eagle Ford Light crude sold for $47.25 a barrel, up from $45.75 on the previous Friday, the same price as WTI.

The price of gasoline remained slipped by a couple of pennies over the past week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States is $2.393 a gallon, down a couple of ticks from $2.395 a week ago.