HOUSTON, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The number of active drilling rigs in the United States increased by two to 1048, or 90 more than this time last year, showed weekly data collected by Baker Hughes released on Friday.

The price of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent increased by 0.6 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively in the week ending on July 20.

The Houston-based oilfield services company reported that the number of active oil rigs increased by three to 861 this week with more than half of oil rigs, or 480, were located in Permian Basin region of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The number of gas rigs dipped by one, hitting 186, and miscellaneous rig count remained the same as one this week.

Canada gained 12 oil rigs this week. Canada's gas rig counts remained the same. Canada's oil and gas rig count is now just up three year on year. Oil rigs were up by 25 year on year in Canada, while the number of gas rigs was down by 22.

Analysts attributed the increase in the Canadian oil rig counts to cyclicality. In spring, the ground becomes too muddy due to melting snow. The industry calls that snow melt the spring break up. In summer, the Canadian oil and gas producers start adding more rigs as the ground dries up.

Oil prices were pressured on Friday as data showed that U.S. energy companies this week added more oil rigs despite the pipeline bottlenecks. Furthermore, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak's statement has put additional pressure on the oil prices, in which he said, "We do not rule out an increase in oil production in excess of 1 million barrels a day."

Another negative factor that pressures the oil prices was the stronger U.S. dollar. U.S. dollar index which is a measure of the value of the U.S. dollar relative to a basket of foreign currencies. Oil is mostly traded in U.S. dollars all over the world and a stronger U.S. dollar pressures the oil demand.

Anas Alhajji, an energy economist based in Dallas, U.S. state of Texas, told Xinhua that "the main threat for growth in global demand this summer is the rising U.S. dollar."

The WTI for August delivery added 0.42 dollar to settle at 68.69 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reporting a gain of 0.6 percent in the week.

Brent crude September delivery added 1.22 U.S. dollar to settle at 74.29 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange, reporting gain of 1.7 percent in the week.

According to the Weekly Petroleum Status Report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday, U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve declined by 6.1 million barrels during the week ending July 20.

In the previous week ending July 13, EIA reported an increase of 5.8 million barrels.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 17.29 million barrels per day during the week ending July 20 which was 46,000 per day more than the previous week's average.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 7.8 million barrels per day last week, down by 1.3 million barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged 8.33 million barrels per day, 6.1 percent higher than the same four-week period last year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.3 million barrels last week and are about 1.4 percent above the levels of the same week last year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 100,000 barrels last week are 19 percent below the levels of the same week last year. Total commercial petroleum inventories declined by 9.7 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 21.05 million barrels per day, down by 0.6 percent from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline supplied averaged 9.68 million barrels per day, down by 0.5 percent from the same period last year.

Distillate fuel supplied over the last four-week period averaged 4.06 million barrels per day, down by 3.9 percent from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, jet fuel supplied averaged 1.87 million barrels per day, maintaining the same levels of the same period last year.