The number of active oil and natural gas rigs in the United States rose for the second straight week to 1,931 for the week ending August 10, 2012, up 0.1% from the prior week but down 1.4% from the year-ago level.

The highest weekly rig count in the United States since 1940 was recorded on December 28, 1981, at 4,530; the lowest was recorded on April 23, 1999, at 488.

The number of rigs in Canada fell again this week by 1.3% to 299 compared with 303 last week and down 35.6% from the year-ago level.

The highest rig count forCanadawas 727 on February 3, 2006; the lowest was 29, recorded on April 24, 1992.

Source: Baker Hughes Inc.

Steel Market Production Increases – An Italian Courthas stopped the shutdown of Ilva’s 11 million tpy capacity plant in Taranto Italy provided that the plant be upgraded to reduce its environmental impact.

Steel Market Production Increases – Italian Steelmaker Lucchini plans to restart the blast furnace at its Piombino works on August 26 after having stopped it for four weeks due to a weak market – the company is currently running at 1.2-1.4 million tpy of its installed capacity of 2.4 million tpy.

Steel Market Production Increases – Ukrainian steelmaker Alchevsk has announced that it plans to increase production by 21 percent in August to 290,000 tonnes of crude steel for the month.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing and SteelOrbis

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