UPDATE 1-U.S. oil drillers cut rigs for third week on weak crude prices -Baker Hughes

(Adds basin details and price reaction)
By Scott DiSavino
Sept 18 (Reuters) - U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for a
third week in a row this week, data showed on Friday, a sign
that the latest crude price weakness was causing drillers to put
on hold plans announced several months ago to return to the well
pad.
Drillers removed eight rigs in the week ended Sept. 18,
bringing the total rig count down to 644, after cutting 23 rigs
over the prior two weeks, oil services company Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI) Inc
BHI.N said in its closely followed report. That was the
biggest three-week decline since May.
Those reductions cut into the 47 oil rigs energy firms added
in July and August after some drillers followed through on plans
to add rigs announced in May and June when U.S. crude futures
CLc1 averaged $60 a barrel.
U.S. oil prices, however, have averaged $46 a barrel so far
this week, up a bit from the $45 average last week.
Earlier on Friday, U.S. crude prices were down more than 3
percent after the U.S. Federal Reserve warned of the health of
the global economy and bearish signs persisted that the world's
biggest crude producers would keep pumping at high levels. O/R
In the country's major shale basins, drillers this week cut
three oil rigs in the Bakken in North Dakota and Montana but
added two in the Permian in West Texas and eastern New Mexico.
The number of rigs in both the Eagle Ford in South Texas and
Niobrara in Colorado and Wyoming remained unchanged.
In response to falling prices, U.S. oil production has
declined over the past several weeks, with output down to about
9.1 million barrels per day last week from an average 9.6
million bpd from late May to mid-July, the highest since the
early 1970s, according to government data.
"The current rig count is pointing to U.S. production
declining sequentially between the second quarter of 2015 and
the fourth quarter by 250 thousand barrels a day," analysts at
Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) said in a note.
Those output reductions occurred months after U.S. energy
firms slashed spending, cut thousands of jobs and idled around
60 percent of the record 1,609 oil rigs that were active in
October 2014 as prices collapsed from around $107 a barrel in
June 2014 to under $44 in January on lackluster global demand
and lingering oversupply concerns.