In the week ended October 9, the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States totaled 605, compared with 614 in the prior week and 1,609 a year ago. Including 190 other rigs mostly drilling for natural gas, there are a total of 795 working rigs in the country, down by 14 week over week and down 1,135 year over year. The data come from the latest Baker Hughes Inc. (NYSE: BHI) North American Rotary Rig Count.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil for November delivery bounced to a high of $50.92 a barrel on Friday, before settling at $49.49 to close the week up by about 9%.
Last week marks the sixth consecutive week with a drop in the rig count, and that is propping up crude prices a bit. But last week’s big boost likely came from a falling dollar late in the week.
The oil producers got a boost on Friday when the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation authorizing U.S. crude oil exports. The export ban has been in place since the first oil embargoes of the 1970s. Similar legislation needs to pass the Senate and then get President Obama’s signature. Neither is a sure thing. In fact, Obama has said he would veto the legislation if it made it to his desk. The House vote, 261 in favor to 159 opposed, is not enough to override a presidential veto. That takes 290 votes and would require another 29 Democrats to side with 235 Republicans and 26 Democrats who voted in favor of lifting the ban.
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The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States is down by 1,004 year over year and down by nine week over week. The natural gas rig count slipped by six, from 195 to 186. The count for natural gas rigs is down by 131 year over year.
Gasoline stockpiles increased by 1.9 million barrels last week, even though refineries ran at just 87.5% of capacity as they continue to perform scheduled maintenance and switch to winter-grade fuel.
Hedge funds — under the Managed Money heading in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) weekly Commitments of Traders report — dumped 7,885 short contracts last week and added 15,192 long contracts. The movement reflects changes as of the October 6 settlement date. Managed money holds 278,318 long positions, compared with 104,851 short positions. Open interest increased by 57,774 contracts to 1,675,676 week over week. The number of hedge funds with large short positions slipped from 53 to 52 last week.
Among the producers themselves, short positions outnumber longs, 361,858 to 176,740. The number of short positions last week rose by 17,376 contracts and longs rose by 10,701 positions. Positions among swaps dealers show 286,621 shorts versus 218,526 longs. Swaps dealers added 11,173 contracts to their short positions last week and added 6,500 long contracts.
Among the states, Oklahoma dropped six rigs last week and Texas dropped four rigs. Kansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania each dropped one rig. No state added a rig last week.
In the Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, the rig count fell by 10 to 235. The Eagle Ford Basin in south Texas dropped two rigs to bring its count to 80, and the Williston Basin (Bakken) in North Dakota and Montana now has 65 working rigs, down one from the prior week.
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Enterprise Products Partners L.P. (NYSE: EPD) lists a posted price of $46.08 per barrel for WTI and an October 10 price of $40.75 a barrel for North Dakota Light Sweet. The posted price for a barrel of Eagle Ford crude is $46.03. The price for all three crude grades rose about $4.00 in the past week.
The pump price of gasoline increased week over week. Saturday morning’s average price in the United States was $2.32 a gallon, up from $2.293 (about 1.2%) a week ago.
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