Oil explorers idled rigs in U.S. fields for the 25th straight week, drawing out an unprecedented retreat in drilling that has curbed the country's shale oil boom and helped crude prices rally.
Rigs targeting oil in the U.S. declined by 13 to 646, the lowest since August 2010, field services company Baker Hughes Inc. said on its website Friday. Most of the losses were outside of major basins, with drilling subsiding in states including California and Louisiana.
U.S. energy producers sidelined more than half of the rigs drilling for oil after crude prices collapsed in the second half of last year. The retreat brought production growth from the nation's biggest shale formations to a halt, suspending a boom that turned the country into the world's biggest fuel exporter.
"The major basins aren't bleeding as much as they were, so we're near the bottom," James Williams, president of energy consultant WTRG Economics, said by phone from London, Ark., on Friday. "We should see a moderate upward move in rigs sometime next month."
U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil for July delivery jumped $2.62 Friday to end the week at $60.30 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Business on 05/30/2015