HOUSTON, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- The number of active drilling rigs in the United States increased by one to 1,068 this week, or 159 more than that this time last year, showed weekly data released by Baker Hughes on Friday.
The number of land drilling rigs increased by two, while the number of offshore drilling rigs decreased by one. U.S. inland waters rig counts stayed level. And this contributes to the one rig more than that last week.
The Houston-based oilfield services company reported that the U.S. state of Alaska and North Dakota led the gain with increasing by two rigs to five and 54 rigs, respectively, while Texas decreased by three to 537 rigs.
The number of rigs operating in U.S. oil fields increased by two to 875 rigs this week, and more than half of the oil rigs were located in the Permian Basin region of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The number of rigs drilling for gas fell by one to a total of 193 rigs this week.
Crude oil futures prices of the United States gained 0.39 percent Friday on concerns over less supply from Iran.
The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for December delivery picked up 0.26 U.S. dollar to settle at 67.59 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Meanwhile, Brent oil price for December delivery further increased 0.74 dollars to 77.63 dollars per barrel.
