Closely held E&Ps account for nearly half of U.S. working rigs Public companies grew rigs 11% vs private explorers’ 77% climb The longest rally for U.S. oil rigs in years has come largely on the backs of explorers outside the public market, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Exploration and production companies that are privately owned boosted their share of the total U.S. working rig count to 44 percent at the start of August, William Foiles and Andrew Cosgrove, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, wrote Monday in a report. That compares to 29 percent in mid-February. “Closely held E&Ps have been driving the recovery in U.S. rig counts,” Foiles and Cosgrove wrote. “Publicly traded companies will likely begin to add more rigs in the closing months of the year as balance sheets become more healthy and they seek to boost production.” West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for crude, is up 74 […]