In the period ended December 23, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 538, compared with 541 in the prior week and 1,499 a year ago. Including 162 other rigs drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 700 working rigs in the country, down nine week over week and down 1,140 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 February delivery closed last Friday at $36.06 and rose about 5.7% to close at $38.10 on Christmas Eve. WTI set a new 52-week low of $35.35 per barrel on Monday afternoon before beginning its climb in earnest after Wednesday’s inventory report.

U.S. crude oil inventories decreased by 5.9 million barrels last week, according the Energy Information Administration. The U.S. crude oil inventory, excluding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, now stands at 484.8 million barrels.

The first export shipment of U.S. crude in 40 years is scheduled to load in the first week of January in Houston. While its destination has not been disclosed, the 600,000-barrel shipment gave energy producers’ stock a lift in the last couple of days of trading before the holiday.

The 2015 version of OPEC’s World Oil Outlook also contributed to the price rise, although the cartel was quite clear that a price recovery is going to be slow. OPEC estimates that prices for its reference basket of 12 crude varieties will rise to $70 in 2020. The basket trades at a discount to both Brent and WTI.

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States is down by 961 year over year and down by three week over week. The natural gas rig count fell by six to total 162 at the end of the week. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 178 year over year. This is the second consecutive week that the natural gas rig count has dropped significantly. The count dropped by 17 in the prior week.

Gasoline stockpiles increased by 1.1 million barrels last week, and U.S. refineries ran at 91.3% of capacity, a week-over-week decrease of about 143,000 barrels a day.
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The weekly Commitments of Traders report from Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will not be released until Monday, December 28, due to the holiday.

Among the states, North Dakota and Wyoming each lost three rigs last week. Arkansas and Louisiana each lost two, and Alaska, Colorado and Texas lost one each. Oklahoma added two rigs, while Kansas and New Mexico each added one.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count rose by six to a total of 212, while the Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas remained unchanged at 77. The Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 55 working rigs, down three from the prior week.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $33.95 per barrel for WTI and a December 26 price of $29.58 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $33.90. The price for all three grades of crude rose by nearly $3 a barrel in the past week.

The pump price of gasoline remained virtually unchanged week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.002 a gallon, up a fraction from $2.001 a week ago.

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