In the week ended June 5, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 642, compared with 646 in the prior week and 1,536 a year ago. Including 226 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 868 working rigs in the country, down seven week-over-week and down 992 year-over-year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes North American Rotary Rig Count.

The oil ministers of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started their meeting Friday in Vienna by reaffirming the cartel’s production quota at 30 million barrels of oil a day. OPEC forecasts the call on its production to increase to 30.7 million barrels a day by the end of this year, but at least one estimate of the cartel’s production has production already topping 31 million barrels a day.

But OPEC’s strategy has worked to the extent that production elsewhere is slowing. OPEC’s estimate for 2015 calls for supply growth of about 700,000 barrels a day from non-OPEC producers, about a third the amount of production growth in 2014.

The number of rigs drilling for oil in North America fell by 894 year-over-year and fell by four week-over-week. The natural gas rig count decreased by three to a total of 222. The rig count for natural gas rigs is down by 98 year-over-year.

U.S. crude stockpiles fell by 1.9 million barrels last week, the fifth consecutive weekly decrease. Gasoline stockpiles also fell as refineries continued to run at more than 93% of capacity, down about 43,000 barrels a day from the previous week. Gasoline inventories have risen above the upper limit of the five-year range for this time of year.

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Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commitments of Traders report — cut both their long and short positions last week. The funds cut long positions by 11,800 contracts and short positions by 5,307. The movement reflects changes as of the June 2 settlement date. Managed money holds 304,462 long positions, compared with 59,940 short positions.

The cuts to both long and short positions ahead of the OPEC meeting could indicate that hedge funds are waiting to see what the cartel will do next, but at least some analysts think the funds are fed up with oil futures and are looking elsewhere for returns. Who can blame them?

Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 368,403 to 198,973. The number of short positions last week fell by 3,310 contracts, while longs added 1,215 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 368,864 shorts versus 198,339 longs. Swaps dealers added to both their long and short positions last week, with longs up 1,956 and shorts up 218.

The states losing rigs last week were Texas (down five), New Mexico and Colorado (each down two). Arkansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania each lost one rig last week. Louisiana added three rigs and West Virginia added two. California and Kansas each added one. Rig counts in Alaska, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming were unchanged.

In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count rose by one to 233. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas lost seven rigs and reports that 103 are now working. The Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana has 76 working rigs, down one compared with the prior week.

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Enterprise Products Partners lists a June 6 posted price of $55.58 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and a price of $51.13 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet and $55.38 a barrel for Eagle Ford crude.

The price of gasoline increased week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.754 a gallon, up about 0.8% from $2.731 a week ago.

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