Baker Hughes reports that US energy companies have added rigs to their fleets for the fourth consecutive week.

Baker Hughes, a leading energy services company, said that U.S. firms added rigs this week for the fourth consecutive week for the first since early June.

Baker Hughes normally releases the report around 1700 GMT on Fridays at?1 pm EDT. The report was released 49 minutes later. Baker Hughes officials did not comment on the cause of the delay.

The number of oil and gas drilling rigs, which is a good indicator of future production, increased by one in the week ending July 10 to 581, its highest level since May 2025.

Baker Hughes reported that the total number of rigs increased by 44, or 8% over this time last year.

Baker Hughes said that oil rigs remained?steady' at 445 this week and gas rigs stayed at 126, while miscellaneous rigs increased by one to 10 during the same period. The Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas saw a three-fold increase to 47 rigs, which is the highest number since April 2025. Texas, which is the largest oil and gas producing state in the country, saw its rig count rise by one, to 272, marking the highest since May 2025.

Oil and gas rig counts declined by 7%, 5%, and 20% between 2025 and 2024 as energy firms focused more on increasing shareholder returns and paying off?debt than?increasing production. The U.S. energy information administration (EIA), however, has projected that crude production will increase from a record of 13.6 million barrels a day (bpd), in 2025, to 13.8 millions bpd, in 2026, due to the disruptions in supply caused by the Iran 'war. EIA predicted that gas production would jump from a record of 107.7 billion cubic feet per day in 2025 to a whopping 111.3 bcfd by 2026, as the demand for fuel increases to power data centers and export LNG. Reporting by Scott DiSavino, Editing by Mark Porter & Chizu Nomiyama

(source: Reuters)