The amount of activity in the exploration and production side of the U.S. oil and gas sector suggests declines have bottomed out, an industry report said. The American Petroleum Institute said it estimated there were 2,285 oil wells drilled and completed during the third quarter of the year, which was about 3.7 percent less than the previous quarter. That follows an average 17.3 percent decline over the last six quarters. “This report shows evidence that the consistent decline in oil and natural gas drilling could be coming to an end,” Hazem Arafa, director of API’s statistics department, said in a statement . Oil field services company Baker Hughes reported last week that the average U.S. rig count for September was […]