ZCZC
BCN-27
US-ENERGY-OIL
Number of active drilling rigs in U.S. continues downtrend amid hiking oil
prices
HOUSTON, July 1, 2018 (BSS/Xinhua) – The number of active drilling rigs in
the United States fell by five this week to 1,047, while the crude oil prices
have been keeping rising for a week.
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, but still 107 more than that this time last year, showed weekly data
collected by Baker Hughes released Friday.
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.
Meanwhile, Canada, for its part, gained 12 oil rigs for the week-after
previous week’s gain of 21 oil and gas rigs, but still down by 17 year over
year.
U.S. crude oil inventories decreased again. According to the Weekly
Petroleum Status Report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
on Wednesday, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, decreased by 9.9 million barrels during the week
ending June 22.
In the previous week ending on June 15, EIA reported a draw of 5.9 million
barrels. For the same week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) on Tuesday
reported a draw of 9.2 million barrels.
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged about 17.8 million barrels per day
during the week ending June 22, which was 115,000 barrels per day more than
the previous week’s average.
At 416.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about 4 percent
below the five-year average for this time of year. Total motor gasoline
inventories increased by 1.2 million barrels last week and are about 6
percent above the five-year range. Finished gasoline inventories decreased
while blending components inventories increased last week.
Distillate fuel inventories remained unchanged last week and are about 14
percent below the five-year average for this time of year. Total products
supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.2 million barrels per
day, up by 1.5 percent from the same period last year.
MORE/HR/1132
ZCZC
BCN-28
US-ENERGY-OIL 2 LAST HOUSTON
Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.5
million barrels per day, down by 0.1 percent from the same period last year.
Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.8 million barrels per day over
the past four weeks, down by 2.5 percent from the same period last year. Jet
fuel product supplied was down 3.7 percent compared with the same four-week
period last year.
Oil prices were sluggish for most of June, although the prices have shown
an upswing starting June 22 as OPEC reached a deal for only modest oil
production hikes.
Oil prices continued to rally on Friday after data showed the number of
active U.S. drilling rigs declined this week.
A weaker U.S. dollar also made the dollar-priced commodity more attractive
for holders of other currencies. The dollar index, which measures the
greenback against six major peers, decreased 0.68 percent to 94.662 at 3:00
p.m. (2000 GMT) on Friday.
Meanwhile, the energy market has been reacting to threats from the Trump
administration this week, who indicated that the White House would look to
sanction countries that don’t reduce their imports of Iranian crude to “zero”
by Nov. 4.
The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for August delivery rose 0.70 U.S.
dollar to settle at 74.15 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile
Exchange, while Brent crude for August delivery added 1.59 dollars to 79.44
dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/1135