Six Weeks In A Row – Rising Rig Count Pushes Oil Down, oilfield chemicals where to go?

The US oil and gas rig count, as reported by Baker Hughes on Friday, was up one over last week, bringing the total number of oil and gas rigs to 464. The US oil rig count was up 7 from last week, while the gas rig count fell five (mostly Marcellus), with miscellaneous rigs also losing a rig. Eagle Ford and the Permian saw the strongest rig count increases. Eagle ford was up 4 oil rigs, while The Permian added an additional 5 oil rigs.
Although a total increase of one rig is fairly insignificant, and oil rig increase of seven—and an increase to the oil rig count for six straight weeks—may add further worries to an already shaky oil market.

But inventory is not the only metric that holds sway in today’s volatile oil market.

Despite dropping over 400 oil and gas rigs from a year ago, according to data aggregated by the American Enterprise Institute on Friday, America still managed to export five times more oil to the world in 2015 than it did 20 years ago, peaking in May at 662,000 bbl/d, according to Reuters. However, data shows that US Crude exports dropped by more than 40% in the month of June, according to a 5 August US Census Bureau report, bringing June’s total oil US oil exports to 383,000 bbl/d.