US oil rigs rose by 11, to 341 on Friday, reversing the prior week's loss and resuming what has been an uneven climb in the last month, according to the latest weekly Baker Hughes rig count released Friday.

Although rigs began a recent rise overall from a trough of 316 in late May, this week's figure is still down 47% from a total of 640 oil rigs that worked during the same week in 2015, the service company's data showed.

This week, a total 431 rigs were working, including natural gas-directed rigs, up 10, but that is exactly half the 862 rigs employed this week in 2015.

Among oil rigs, the largest gain came from the Permian Basin in west Texas and New Mexico where 154 rigs were working, up four from the previous week. Still, the Permian oil rig count is down 33% from 231 the same week in 2015.

Smaller basins gained two oil rigs each this week: the DJ-Niobrara play in Colorado rose to 14, down from 22 during the same week in 2015, a year ago, while the Cana Woodford in Oklahoma increased to 26, compared with 32 a year ago.

Also, the Barnett shale play added one oil this week to eight, up from three a year ago. The Barnett is basically a natural gas and liquids play, but the oil rig count there jumped two weeks ago by five. Analysts have said the added rigs were drilling vertical wells.

Observers also speculated that smaller, privately owned companies may have been chasing oil in another formation but also opted to drill into the Barnett, an interval found in a larger number of north Texas counties than the unconventional gas play produced from in its heyday 10 to 15 years ago.

Besides the Permian, oil rigs in the US' two other large plays, the Eagle Ford Shale in south Texas and the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana which includes Bakken Shale, remained flat this week. The Eagle Ford has 27 oil rigs working this week, down 69% from 86 in the same week in 2015, and the Williston has 26 rigs working, down 66% from 76 in the same week in 2015.

--Starr Spencer, starr.spencer@spglobal.com

--Edited by Richard Rubin, richard.rubin@spglobal.com

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