The American Petroleum Institute reported a 62-percent annual increase in oil and gas drilling in the second quarter of 2017 in the United States. For oil, well completions shot up by 81 percent in April-June 2017 from a year earlier, according to API estimates, and also rose by 19 percent from the first quarter of the year. Gas well completions were estimated to be 41 percent higher in the second quarter of 2017 than in the same period a year earlier. The data reflects EIA reports of rising U.S. oil and gas production and an intensification of this rise. For the first quarter of the year, the API reported a 35-percent increase in oil and gas well completions, which was not a huge surprise, given that these completions in Q1 2016 were down by 59% on an annual basis. According to EIA data, crude oil production in the U.S. […]