With declines split between both oil and natural gas drilling, the U.S. rig count dropped four units to fall to 751 for the period ending Thursday (April 6), the latest figures published by Baker Hughes Co. (BKR) show.

Two oil-directed rigs and two natural gas-directed rigs exited the patch domestically for the week, with land drilling down three and the Gulf of Mexico dropping one unit to finish at 16. Horizontal drilling decreased by five units in the United States, partially offset by a net increase of one vertical rig.

The 751 active U.S. rigs as of Thursday compares with 689 rigs running in the year-earlier period, according to the BKR numbers, which are partly based on data from Enverus. Driven by a pullback in oil drilling, the U.S. rig count sits well off its recent peak...