US Oil Rigs Get Hammered for the 12th Week

[Purveyor]

Source: Bloomberg

by Tom Randall
1:07 PM EST February 27, 2015

U.S. oil rigs declined for the 12th straight week despite still-rising levels of production.

Drillers idled 33 oil rigs (excluding gas rigs), dropping the number to 986, Baker Hughes reported on Friday. The rig count is down 39 percent since October, an unprecedented retreat. The median forecast from a Bloomberg survey of 38 #RigCountGuesses on Twitter was for a decline of 35.

The Baker Hughes rig count has been around since 1944, but only since the price crash last year has it has emerged as a widely popular, though controversial, signal for U.S. oil watchers. Rigs are used to explore for new deposits and to drill new wells. The theory goes that when oil rigs decline, fewer wells are drilled, less new oil is discovered, and oil production slows. That would be good news for investors hoping for a rise in crude prices after the oil crash.

But production isn't slowing yet, and new efficiencies in U.S. drilling and pumping may make raw numbers of rigs in the field misleading. The U.S. will pump 9.3 million barrels a day this year, the most since 1972, despite the fewest rigs in the field in almost four years, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-27/us-oil-rigs-get-hammered-for-the-12th-week

[Wellstone ruled]

1. And the Pumps kept pumping Baby.

There is one heck of a glut of crude on the market and we are adding some 9 million barrels a day. It is all about supply and demand and the average Joe is not sucking up the surplus. Rig counts are very miss leading,each rig platform today drills multiple wells before the rig is dismantled. When the Tanks in Cushing,OK are full to the brim,then oil goes to 25 bucks or lower. The Banks and Hedge Funds are just f-- the day lites out of the American Public with this Oil Price Manipulation. It's better than Stocks or Bonds and you don't have to pay the Tax if you have the right Lawyer.

[Purveyor]

2. Odd that our gasoline prices are up to $2.49 from a low of 1.84 a month or so

ago...

[Wellstone ruled]

3. It is all about the manipulation of the Futures Market in

Chicago. Tons of 1%ers wanted in the Oil Market months ago seeing the huge profits one could make on the pump and dump going on with the Options. Now you see the same in the Refined Products hedging. That the fake run up on Gas. It's all about the lack of Trading Rules covering Commodities and the ability of the Chicago Merc to steal . Price gauging.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. +1 for "manipulation"