In the week ended April 22, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 343, compared with 351 in the prior week and 703 a year ago. Including 88 other rigs drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 431 working rigs in the country, down nine week over week and down 501 year over year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count released on Friday.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil for June delivery traded up about 1.3% on Friday to settle at $43.75. The most active contract (the May contract expired on Wednesday) rose 8.3% in the week. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last Wednesday that crude supplies had increased by 2.1 million barrels in the week ended April 15 and that gasoline supplies had fallen by just 100,000 barrels.

Last Sunday’s meeting of oil-producing nations in Doha was a bust, and should have sent prices falling. That did happen, but only until markets opened on Monday. Following the EIA inventory report on Wednesday, crude spiked to above $44 a barrel.

The price increase is likely due to reports from the EIA and the International Energy Agency (IEA) that production has dropped by 600,000 to 700,000 barrels a day, mostly due to production cuts in the United States. Market speculators (hedge funds) have also continued dumping short contracts and that pushes prices up as well.

Based on fundamentals of supply and demand, though, the oil market still has a ways to go to achieve a balance. That may not occur until sometime next year, and that still leaves storage tanks around the world with abundant supplies.

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States is down by 360 year over year and down by eight week over week. The natural gas rig count dropped by one to 88. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 137 year over year. Natural gas for June delivery closed the week at $2.26 per million BTUs, up 35 cents from $1.91 at the end of the prior week. The low price for natural gas over the past 12 months is $1.84 per million BTUs.

U.S. refineries ran at 89.4% of capacity, a week-over-week increase of about 162,000 barrels a day. Imports rose by 247,000 barrels a day, to around 8.2 million barrels a day in the week.

Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) weekly Commitments of Traders report — dumped 12,118 short contracts last week and added 8,733 long contracts. The movement reflects changes as of the April 19 settlement date. Managed money holds 297,733 long positions compared with 75,862 short positions. Open interest totaled 1,714,186. There were 53 hedge funds with large short positions last week, down by three compared with the prior week.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs by about three to one, 452,799 to 156,094. The number of short positions fell by 4,008 contracts last week, and longs dropped by 15,053 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 248,547 short contracts versus 219,454 long positions. Swaps dealers added 3,574 contracts to their short positions last week and cut 31,925 long positions.

Among the states, Texas lost seven rigs last week, while Louisiana and Ohio lost one each. No state added a rig during the week.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count dropped by five to 136. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas dropped two rigs for a new total of 40, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 26 working rigs, unchanged compared with the prior week.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $38.63 per barrel for WTI and an April 23 price of $39.58 a barrel for Eagle Ford crude. The price for both varieties rose by $1.82 a barrel over the past week. Enterprise has not posted a price for North Dakota Light Sweet for the past four weeks.

The pump price of gasoline rose by about 1% week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.131 a gallon, up from $2.114 a week ago.

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