US Drillers Continue to Add Oil Rigs -Baker Hughes
U.S. oil drillers increased rigs this week for a 21th week in the last 24, as energy firms follow through on plans to add rigs made months ago when crude was still trading over the key $50 a barrel level analysts said should lead to more drilling. Drillers added two oil rigs in the week to Nov. 11, bringing the total count up to 452, the most since February, but still below the 574 rigs seen a year ago, energy services firm Baker Hughes Inc said on Friday. Since crude topped $50 a barrel in May, June and October, drillers have added 136 oil rigs, its biggest recovery in over two years since prices collapsed due to a global oil glut. The Baker Hughes oil rig count plunged from a record 1,609 in October 2014 to a six-year low of 316 in May as U.S.
US Oil Output Seen on the Rise
Large U.S. shale oil companies, flush with cash raised through stock offerings, are gobbling up properties in the Permian Basin straddling Texas and New Mexico, a trend that could boost U.S. oil output in the second half of 2017. Hess Corp and Devon Energy Corp are among oil and gas companies that tapped the equity market in the first eight months of the year, raising a total $20.40 billion. That is the most since at least 1996, barring 2014 when the energy companies raised $20.46 billion in the first eight months of the year. The industry raised $19.78 billion through stock offerings in all of 2015, according to Reuters data, but almost all of this was used to pay off debt.
US Oil Drillers Add Rigs for 5th Week in 6
U.S. drillers this week added oil rigs for a fifth week in six, according to a closely followed report Friday, prompting analysts to predict the rig count has bottomed and production will start to edge up early next year. Drillers added 10 oil rigs in the week to July 8, bringing the total rig count up to 351, compared with 645 a year ago, energy services firm Baker Hughes Inc said. Before this week, drillers added oil rigs in only five out of 26 weeks this year, cutting on average eight rigs per week for a total of 195. Last year, they cut 18 rigs per week on average for a total of 963, the biggest decline since at least 1988. After slumping from 1,609 rigs in October 2014 amid the biggest oil price rout in a generation, the rig count started to inch up in June as U.S.
Oil Drillers Group to Fight U.S. Export Ban
More than a dozen U.S. oil producers have joined to lobby the federal government to reverse the 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude exports, a move that supporters hope would create jobs and boost national security, a spokesman for one of the companies and a lobbyist for another one said on Friday. Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, is the first lobbying group to form on reversing the ban. "The end game here is legislative repeal of the ban," said a lobbyist for one of the member producers, who did not want to be named because the group was only recently formed. Congress passed the trade restriction in the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo caused fears of domestic oil shortages.
