The positive signs in the oil sector are all around us.

A couple of weeks ago, I showed Growth Stock Wire readers that we’ve entered a new uptrend in oil prices. And last week, my colleague Brian Weepie shared a unique group of high-quality oil investments that you should consider buying today.

[ad#Google Adsense 336×280-IA]As I told my Stansberry Resource Report subscribers this month, it’s time to start dipping our toes back into the oil sector.

Things have gone from “bad to less bad,” so we want to be in a position to make money as the uptrend continues.

And today, we have more proof that oil prices are headed higher…

According to oil-services company Baker Hughes (BHI), the number of drilling rigs operating in the U.S. rose slightly from 387 on June 3 to 393 last Friday.

That’s a climb of just six rigs, but it’s significant. It’s the second week in a row we’ve added rigs. We’re still early, but this trend looks like it may have legs…

This reversal tells me that things in the oil patch are moving in the right direction again. Producers removed 1,083 rigs from service last year… and another 280 this year. But that trend is changing. Business is picking up for companies in the sector.

Remember, the price of West Texas Intermediate (“WTI”) crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, bottomed in February around $27 per barrel, then began to climb. But the industry continued to cut rigs. At the end of May, we had just 380 drilling rigs operating… the fewest in decades.

The rig count doesn’t always follow oil prices. Even though the price of WTI has doubled since February, the rig count has continued to fall… until now.

Today, the rig count tells us about the health of the oil industry. At $25 per barrel, almost no oil in the U.S. is economic for companies to drill. But at $50 per barrel, some areas become profitable.

We still shouldn’t rush out and buy shares of every company in the sector. Some are still in trouble. For example, Seventy Seven Energy (SSE), an oil-services company that spun out of Chesapeake Energy (CHK) in 2014, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

The company had $1.7 billion in assets and $1.8 billion in debt, according to court filings. Shares of the company fell from more than $26 in July 2014 to just $0.16 today.

But the rising rig count means that there will be more new wells drilled. New wells need service, so companies like Schlumberger (SLB) and Halliburton (HAL) should get a boost. These companies specialize in well services… from testing, to fracking, to plumbing.

Both of these oilfield giants should continue to rise as more wells come online.

Good investing,

Matt Badiali

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Source: Growth Stock Wire