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1st LD Writethru: Oil prices drop amid ample supplies

Xinhua, August 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

Oil prices plummeted Friday as signs showed that oil producers kept on pumping despite the falling prices.

U.S. oil companies added more oil rigs this week, marking the fourth straight week of an uptick in the rig count.

Data showed a weekly rise of two in the number of active U.S. oil drilling rigs to 674, according to oil service company Baker Hughes' Friday report.

U.S. crude supplies of last week gained 2.6 million barrels to 456.2 million, up 93.7 million barrels from one year earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration's Wednesday weekly report.

Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the U.S. contract, added 0.32 million barrels to 57.1 million barrels.

In July, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) crude production increased by 101,000 barrels per day to an average of 31.51 million barrels per day, according to OPEC's monthly oil market report released recently.

The West Texas Intermediate for October delivery moved down 87 cents to settle at 40.45 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for October delivery decreased 1.16 dollars to close at 45.46 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Future Exchange. Endit