In the week ended July 10, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 645, compared with 640 in the prior week and 1,563 a year ago. Including 218 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 863 working rigs in the country, up one from last week and down 1,012 year over year. The past week marks the second consecutive week of increases in the U.S. rig count. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count.

The state of North Dakota reported on Friday that oil production reached 1.2 million barrels a day in the month of May, a 2.7% increase over May 2014. The state’s director of mineral resources, Lynn Helms, said that the 73 rigs operating in North Dakota on Friday was the lowest total since November 2009, according to a report in the Grand Forks Herald.

The rig count in North Dakota is down by two-thirds year over year, and applications for new drilling permits are down 48%. At the end of May, an estimated 925 wells in the state were waiting for fracking crews. Until prices return to around $65, Helms does not think those wells will be fracked and completed. A price of $70 a barrel is probably the level that will attract more drilling rigs to the state.

Nationwide, refineries were running at nearly 95% of capacity, with daily input of more than 16.6 million barrels a day, about 65,000 barrels a day more than the previous week. Imports also dropped by about 200,000 barrels a day compared with the prior week.

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The number of rigs drilling for oil in North America fell by 918 year over year and rose by five from the previous week. The natural gas rig count decreased by two to a total of 217. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 94, relative to a year ago.

Gasoline stockpiles rose by 1.2 million barrels last week, even though refineries lowered run levels. Gasoline inventories remain in the upper half of the five-year average range.

Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report — cut their long positions last week by 7,328 contracts and boosted their short positions by 32,694 contracts. The movement reflects changes as of the July 7 settlement date. Managed money holds 279,448 long positions, compared with 98,418 short positions.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 345,380 to 201,152. The number of short positions last week fell by 24,460 contracts and longs dropped by 3,872 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 346,572 shorts versus 199,924 longs. Swaps dealers added 13,466 contracts to their long positions last week and cut 6,741 short contracts.

Six states lost 13 rigs last week: North Dakota dropped six, Kansas and Pennsylvania lost two each, and Louisiana, Utah and West Virginia each lost one. Texas added five rigs last week, New Mexico added four, and Ohio, Colorado and California added one each. Totals remained unchanged in the other states.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count rose by seven to 239. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas lost four rigs to finish the week with a count of 102, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 71 working rigs, down six from the prior week.

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Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $49.19 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and a July 11 price of $44.76 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $48.99. All prices are about $4.00 a barrel lower than they were a week ago.

The pump price of gasoline decreased slightly week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.761 a gallon, down about 0.3% from $2.77 a week ago.

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