Jan 15 (Reuters) - U.S. energy firms this week continued to
cut the number of rigs drilling for oil to the lowest in nearly
six years, data showed on Friday, suggesting drillers were
preserving cash as they evaluate spending plans as crude prices
hover near 12-year lows.
Drillers removed one oil rig in the week ended Jan. 15,
bringing the total rig count down to 515, the least since April
2010, oil services company Baker Hughes Inc BHI.N said in its
closely followed report.
That is 851 fewer rigs from the 1,366 oil rigs operating in
same week a year ago.
It was a slowdown in the pace of reductions as drillers cut
on average 18 rigs per week in 2015 for a total of 963 oil rigs
for the year.
Despite the slowdown, several energy firms were still
waiting for higher prices before increasing their drilling
activities.
"The December year-end holiday period was an exceptionally
slow one. Our customers dramatically slowed their activities as
they preserved cash and deferred maintenance work in response to
continually weak commodity prices," Roe Patterson, president and
CEO of energy service firm Basic Energy Services Inc BAS.N ,
said in a release this week.
"It is still too early to get a view of activity for the
first quarter as most of our customers are still evaluating
their spending plans for 2016," Patterson said.
U.S. crude futures CLc1 breached $30 a barrel on Friday as
the market braced for increased Iranian oil exports once
international sanctions are lifted, possibly within days, and
Russia said it was likely to increase production in 2016. O/R
U.S. crude fell to its lowest level since 2003 on Friday,
putting the front-month down about 20 percent since the start of
the year as it heads for a third weekly decline in a row.
Analysts forecast the number of rigs operating will likely
continue to decline so long as prices remain low.
"Further rig cuts are expected as oil and gas prices remain
weak," analysts at Citigroup (N:C), a U.S. bank, said this week in a
note.
Citi forecast the reduction in rigs would only "modestly
impact" production in 2016. The bank expects U.S. oil output in
2016 to fall by about 500,000 to 600,000 barrels per day from
2015.
"If prices rebound sharply on signs of markets rebalancing,
producers may add back rigs as their cash flow improves," Citi
said.
U.S. crude oil production averaged about 9.4 million bpd in
2015 and was forecast to average 8.7 million bpd in 2016 and 8.5
million bpd in 2017, according to the U.S. Energy Information
Administration's Short-Term Energy Outlook released this week.
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Graphic on U.S. rig counts http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/15/rigcount/index.html
U.S. natural gas rig count versus futures price http://link.reuters.com/nuz86t
Thomson Reuters Analytics natural gas data reuters://screen/verb=Open/URL=cpurl://pointcarbon.cp./trading/gmtna/
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