HOUSTON, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- The number of active drilling rigs in the United States dipped by four this week to 1,044, but still 90 more than that this time last year, showed weekly data released by Baker Hughes on Friday.

The Houston-based oilfield services company reported that the number of active oil rigs decreased by two to 859 this week with more than half of oil rigs, or 480, were located in the Permian Basin region of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico.

Meanwhile, the number of gas rigs dipped by three, hitting 183 and one miscellaneous rig was added to create the net loss of four rigs. Now there are two miscellaneous rigs in the country.

Oil prices went down on Friday amid rising supplies from countries including Russia and Saudi Arabia.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for September delivery lost 0.47 U.S. dollar to settle at 68.49 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for October delivery erased 0.24 dollar to close at 73.21 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.