The the number of active oil and gas rigs in the U.S. fell once again this week according to Baker Hughes, as oil production fell for the first week this year.
The total number of active oil and gas drilling rigs fell by 1 rig¬ according to the report, with the number of active oil rigs falling by 1 to reach 833 and the number of gas rigs holding steady at 193.
The oil and gas rig count is now just 36 up from this time last year, 33 of which are oil rigs.
Oil prices were trading down earlier on Friday leading up to the data release as OPEC appeared to slow its production cut activities, and as global inventories are still thought to be robust.
WTI was trading down $0.13 (-0.22%) at $58.48, while Brent was trading down $0.22 (-0.33%) at $67.01 at 12:23pm EST—both benchmarks trading up more than $2 week on week as well at that time.
US crude oil production for week ending March 8 was 12.0 million bpd—the first decline, albeit a minor one—in this calendar year, coming off last week’s high of 12.1 million bpd.
Canada’s oil and gas rigs saw a huge decrease in the number rigs this week. Canada’s total oil and gas rig count fell by 28 and is now 161, which is 58 fewer rigs than this time last year as Canada struggles under the weight of the reality of mandatory production cuts and woefully insufficient takeaway capacity.
By 1:09pm EDT, WTI was trading down 0.10% (-$0.06) at $58.55 on the day. Brent crude was trading down 0.34% (-$0.23) at $67.00 per barrel.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
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