In the period ended November 25th, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. totaled 555 compared with 564 in the prior week and 1,572 a year ago. Including 189 other rigs drilling for natural gas there are a total of 744 working rigs in the U.S., down from 757 week-over-week, and down 1,173 year-over-year. The data comes from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count released Wednesday ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
WTI crude oil for January delivery fell closed last Friday at $41.90 and rose to close at $42.87 on Tuesday following the shooting down of a Russian plane by the Turkish air force.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 1 million barrels last week according the Energy Information Administration, adding to pricing pressure for crude. In electronic trading today WTi traded down about 0.6% at around $42.75 after dropping as low as $42.65.
The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. is down by 1,017 year-over-year, and down by 9 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count dropped by 4 to total 189 as of Wednesday. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 155 year-over-year.
Gasoline stockpiles increased by 2.5 million barrels last week and U.S. refineries ran at 92% of capacity, a week-over-week increase of 137,000 barrels a day.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly Commitment of Traders report, which is normally posted on Friday afternoon, will not be published until Monday due to the holiday weekend.
Among the states, Texas lost 6 rigs last week while Alaska, California, Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming each lost 1. New Mexico added 2 rigs and Oklahoma added 1.
In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico the rig count fell by 4 to a total of 221; the Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas dropped 2 rigs to bring its count to 73; and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 62 working rigs, down 1 from the prior week.
Enterprise Products Partners LP (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $39.29 per barrel for WTI and an November 26th price of $35.83 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $39.44. The price for all three grades of crude rose by $2.65 a barrel in the past week.
The pump price of gasoline decreased week over week. Thursday morning’s average price in the U.S. is $2.054 a gallon, down about 2.9% from $2.115 a week ago.
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