U.S. oil drillers cut rigs for 6th week on weak crude prices - Baker Hughes

By Scott DiSavino
Oct 9 (Reuters) - U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for a sixth
week in a row this week, the longest streak of weekly declines
since June, data showed on Friday, a sign low prices continued
to keep drillers away from the well pad.
Drillers removed nine oil rigs in the week ended Oct. 9,
bringing the total rig count down to 605, oil services company
Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI) Inc BHI.N said in its closely followed report.
That total was the least since July, 2010. Drillers had cut a
total of 61 rigs over the prior five weeks.
Since hitting an all-time high of 1,609 during this week a
year ago, weekly rig count reductions have averaged 20.
The reductions over the past month erased the 47 oil rigs
added over the summer when drillers followed through on plans to
add rigs announced in May and June when U.S. crude futures
averaged $60 a barrel.
U.S. oil futures CLc1 this week averaged $48 a barrel, up
from a $45 average last week, on concerns over Russia's entry
into the Syrian conflict and a rising Chinese stock market.
On Friday, U.S. futures were trading around $50 a barrel, up
just 1 percent on the day, in choppy trade as speculators took
profits on a big weekly surge for Brent. O/R
"The current rig count is still pointing to U.S. production
declining sequentially between the second quarter and fourth
quarters of 2015," analysts at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) said, noting
production growth was expected to resume in 2016.
Despite drilling cutbacks, U.S. oil production edged up to
9.4 million barrels per day (bpd) in July from 9.3 million bpd
in June, according to the latest U.S. Energy Information
Administration's (EIA) 914 production report.
That increase, however, occurred because a project in the
Gulf of Mexico that was started year's ago when the price of oil
was much higher began producing oil. ID:nL1N12027G
On a weekly basis, the amount of U.S. oil pulled out of the
ground has remained about 9.1 million bpd since the start of
September, according to EIA's weekly field production report,
well below the 9.6 million bpd peak seen in April.