Rigs targeting oil and natural gas in the U.S. increased by seven this week to 1,782, according to Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) Oil rigs jumped 14 to 1,411, a six-month high, data posted on the company’s website show. The gas count dropped six to 369, the Houston-based field services company said. Miscellaneous rigs declined by one to two. The total count has risen six of the past seven weeks, adding 40 rigs since Nov. 1, as producers increasingly use a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to reach shale deposits of crude in Texas ’s Permian Basin. The technological improvements have helped drive domestic oil production to the highest level in a quarter-century. Rigs drilling horizontal targets in the Permian jumped 19 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier “as operators continue to shift toward unconventional drilling,” Vincent Piazza, a Bloomberg Industries oil analyst in Princeton, […]