Oil Rig Count Falls by 1; Crude Prices Head for Second Consecutive Weekly Rise

3:44 PM ET 05/16/2025 - MT Newswires

The count for oil fell to 473 from last Friday's 474 tally, while gas dropped by one to 100. Miscellaneous rigs were unchanged at three. The US had 497 oil, 103 gas and four miscellaneous rigs in operation a year earlier, the data showed.

A total of 576 rigs were operating in the US as of Friday, compared with the previous week's tally of 578 and last year's 604.

Among US states, both New Mexico and Texas lost two rigs. Ohio and Wyoming added one each.

Across North America, the oil and gas rigs count rose by five on a weekly basis to 697, with Canada's tally increasing by seven to 121.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up 1.4% at $62.51 a barrel in Friday afternoon trading, while Brent rose 1.4% to $65.41 a barrel. The gains follow two straight days of losses, but both benchmarks are headed for their second consecutive weekly gains, having risen more than 2% each so far on the week.

"Market sentiment continues to alternate between concerns over rising global supply and the potential economic fallout from ongoing global trade tensions," Saxo Bank Head of Commodity Strategy Ole Hansen said in a report. "Over the past week, a fresh attempt to push prices higher -- driven by renewed hopes from US-China trade negotiations -- was only partially successful. Gains were quickly reversed amid bearish supply-side developments."

Washington and Beijing recently agreed to suspend reciprocal duties on each other's goods for 90 days.

Earlier in the week, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries announced it was maintaining its global oil demand projections for 2025 and 2026, though it reduced its world and US economic growth forecasts for this year.

Price: 37.70, Change: -0.03, Percent Change: -0.09

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