Decline in US drilling activity stopped

Oil prices shed their early gains again and closed trading more or less unchanged. They find themselves under renewed pressure this morning. Brent has fallen to below $62 per barrel, putting it at the bottom end of the corridor in which it has been trading since mid-April. 

WTI has dropped to $56.4 per barrel, which marks its lowest level since the end of April. This is the response of oil prices to current figures from Baker Hughes, which show that the decline in drilling activity in the US has stopped. 

The data indicate an increase in the oil rig count by 12 this week - the first weekly rise in 30 weeks. Oil rigs were added at all major shale oil plays, three of them at Eagle Ford, two at Bakken and one each in the Permian Basin and at Niobrara. 

True, one swallow does not make a summer - if other new oil rigs were to be added in the coming weeks, however, this would cast doubt over the anticipated decline in US (shale) oil production. Yet precisely such a decrease is necessary so that the oversupply on the global oil market can be reduced and oil prices can further recover, says Commerzbank.