Number of active drilling rigs in US continues downtrend this week

HOUSTON - The number of active drilling rigs in the United States fell by five this week to 1,047, but still 107 more than that this time last year, showed weekly data collected by Baker Hughes released Friday.

The Houston-based oilfield services company Baker Hughes reported that the number of oil rigs operating in the United States fell by four while those seeking natural gas dropped by one, driving the overall rig count down to 1,047.

There are now 858 rigs drilling for oil with more than half of them - 474 - situated in the Permian Basin region of West Texas and New Mexico. There are exactly 187 gas-seeking rigs and two miscellaneous rigs.

Baker Hughes reported a fall of seven active rigs in the previous week.

Oil prices were sluggish for most of June, although the prices have shown an upswing starting last Friday as OPEC reached a deal for only modest oil production hikes.