In the week ended April 2, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 802, compared with 813 in the prior week and 1,498 a year ago. Including 226 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 1,028 working rigs in the country, down 20 week-over-week and down 739 year-over-year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count.

The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 696 year-over-year and by 11 week-over-week. The natural gas rig count declined by 11 week-over-week to a total of 222, and it is down by 94 year-over-year.

The week-over-week decline in oil rigs has dipped in each of the past two weeks. Since October 10, when the number of oil rigs working in the United States totaled 1,609, the number of oil rigs has dropped by 807, or about 50.2%.

Crude prices rose about 2% last week, after bouncing off a low of just over $47 a barrel, to close out the week at around $48.50 on Thursday. The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price for May delivery peaked at around $50.50 on Wednesday after the inventory report noted a sharp decline in gasoline supplies. Then, the agreement between Iran and a group of six countries including the United States over Iran’s nuclear program is viewed as potential adding to the current global glut of crude.

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Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commitments of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — added about 10,000 long contracts on NYMEX crude and cut short positions by 24,000 contracts. As of March 31, there were about 325,000 long positions among the Managed Money players, compared with 149,000 short positions.

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 336,000 to 210,000, and positions among swaps dealers are about the same. Both groups added about 17,000 short positions and about 10,000 long positions.

The states losing the most rigs last week were Texas (six), Louisiana (five) and Oklahoma (four). Alaska and Kansas each added one rig last week, and California added two.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count dropped by five to bring the total down to 285. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas remained unchanged at 137 working rigs, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana has 91 working rigs, down six from the prior week.

As of Thursday, the posted price for Williston Basin sweet crude had increased from $32.44 a barrel a week ago to $32.94, and Williston Basin sour rose from $23.33 a barrel to $23.83 a barrel. Eagle Ford Light crude sold for $45.75 a barrel, up from $45.25 on the previous Friday, the same price as WTI.

The price of gasoline slipped by a couple of pennies over the week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.395 a gallon, up a couple of ticks from $2.426 a week ago.

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