Houston: Explorers this week idled the most drilling rigs in US oilfields in almost a year as a historic high in US crude supplies undermined efforts by the market to rally.

Rigs targeting oil in the US fell by 31 to 467, Baker Hughes Inc. said on its website Friday. It was the biggest one- week drop for oil rigs in 11 months. Natural gas rigs were trimmed by 17 to 104, bringing the total down by 48 to 571. Explorers and producers in the Eagle Ford of south Texas had the biggest fallback in activity, dropping eight oil rigs and leaving 55 to work there.

Now that producers have given up hope for a recovery in the first half of the year, “it’s time to cut hard and cut fast,” Brian Uhlmer, managing director at GMP Securities in Houston, said Friday in a phone interview. “It’s just been a slow trickle for the last six months or so.”

US supplies rose above 500 million barrels through January 29, the highest level since 1930 in monthly government data compiled by the Energy Information Administration. Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino is due to travel to Saudi Arabia, continuing his tour of producers in a bid to encourage cooperation to boost prices.

Still Vulnerable

“Absent any surprise on Sunday when Del Pino meets” with Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi “I see prices remaining vulnerable to the downside, as the oil market is still oversupplied,” said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich. “We do not expect a coordinated production cut.”

America’s oil drillers have idled about two-thirds of the country’s rigs since October 2014 as the world’s largest crude suppliers battle for market share. Despite the cutbacks, US production has remained stubbornly high as new techniques that increase efficiency keep the oil flowing.

US production fell by 7,000 barrels last week to 9.21 million barrels a day, according to weekly Energy Information Administration data. It was the second time in eight weeks that US output dropped.

While crude rallied 14 per cent in the final two weeks of last month, it’s heading toward a weekly decline, down about 15 per cent this year amid brimming US crude stockpiles and concern about Iran’s effort to boost exports after the removal of sanctions.

West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, is trading around $32 a barrel.

Given that there were about 200 operators running one- or two-rig drilling programs at the end of the year, it’s easy to see that activity getting cut back, dropping the oil rig count into the 300s this year, Matt Marietta, an analyst at Stephens Inc. said Friday in a phone interview.

“There was a belief out there in the market that there would be this refunding of capital budgets because we got to year end,” Marietta said. “I think that’s been completely disproved.”