HOUSTON, July 21 (Xinhua) -- The number of active drilling rigs in the United States decreased by eight this week to 1,046, or 96 more than that this time last year, showed weekly data collected by Baker Hughes released on Friday.

The prices of the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent fell by 1.4 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively in the week ending July 20.

The Houston-based oilfield services company reported that the number of active oil rigs fell by five to 858 this week with more than half of oil rigs, or 476, were located in the Permian Basin region of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The number of gas rigs dipped by two, hitting 187, and one of two miscellaneous rigs also was taken out of service this week.

Canada gained 14 oil and gas rigs for the week, 11 of which were gas rigs. Canada's oil and gas rig count is now up just 5 year on year. Oil rigs were up by 24 year on year in Canada, while the number of gas rigs was down by 19.

Oil prices were lifted on Friday as data showed that U.S. energy companies this week cut oil rigs by the most since March and as U.S. dollar declined against other major currencies.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for August delivery added 1.00 U.S. dollar to settle at 70.46 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reporting loss of 1.4 percent in the week. Brent crude for September delivery increased 0.49 dollar to close at 73.07 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange, reporting loss of 3.0 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, increased by 5.8 million barrels during the week ending July 13.

In the previous week ending July 6, EIA reported a draw of 12.6 million barrels, the biggest weekly drop in domestic crude supplies in nearly two years.

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged about 17.2 million barrels per day during the week ending July 13, which was 413,000 barrels per day less than the previous week's average.

U.S. crude oil imports averaged 9.1 million barrels per day last week, up by 1,635,000 barrels per day from the previous week. Over the past four weeks, crude oil imports averaged about 8.5 million barrels per day, 8.1 percent more than the same four-week period last year.

Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 3.2 million barrels last week and were about 5 percent above the five year average for this time of year.

Distillate fuel inventories decreased by 0.4 million barrels last week and were about 13 percent below the five year average for this time of year. Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 6.0 million barrels last week.

Total products supplied over the last four-week period averaged 20.7 million barrels per day, down by 0.3 percent from the same period last year. Over the past four weeks, motor gasoline product supplied averaged 9.6 million barrels per day, down by 0.1 percent from the same period last year.

Distillate fuel product supplied averaged 3.9 million barrels per day over the past four weeks, down by 5.2 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel product supplied was up 0.8 percent compared with the same four-week period last year.