US drilling rig count falls again this week

The number of oil and gas rigs in the United States declined again this week due to lower oil prices, the Houston-based driller Baker Hughes said Friday.

According to Baker Hughes, one of the world's largest oilfield services companies, oil and gas rigs in the United States fell by 16 to 848 as of Friday. Last week, the rig count in the country dropped 13, the biggest plunge in three months.

Earlier this week, the company's rig count report for August showed that the average total rig count for August was 883, up 17 from July.

The number of drilling rigs in the country peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.

The recovery in drilling activity and output in the United States expected for the year of 2016 is starting to look elusive, said the International Energy Agency on Friday, which expects the country's drilling and completion activity to drop by 20 percent to 70 percent in 2016.

On Friday, the price for West Texas Intermediate crude futures in New York fell by about 2 percent to 44.86 U.S. dollars per barrel, and at the same time, analysts from Goldman Sachs, a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm, forecast that oil could decline to as low as 20 U.S. dollars per barrel, and oversupply will continue in 2016.