U.S. Oil Drilling Shows Signs of Stalling Despite Price Rally

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. oil producers don’t appear to be responding to the price signal from the crude market -- at least that’s what the latest drill rig data implies.

Friday’s report from Baker Hughes Co. shows the number of oil rigs deployed in the country fell by 2 from a week earlier to 443. That snaps a run of six successive weekly gains.

While one data point may well be an anomaly, it will do little to assuage concerns about domestic supply. Storage tanks at the oil hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, may shrink to critically low levels in weeks, even as West Texas Intermediate crude prices extend a weeks-long rally and test the $85-a-barrel mark for the first time in seven years.

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