EIA: US Shale Oil Output Expected to Fall in December
(Reuters) — U.S. oil output from top shale-producing regions is set to decline in December for a second consecutive month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its monthly Drilling Productivity Report on Monday.
Oil output is expected to drop to 9.652 million barrels per day (bpd) in December, from an estimated 9.653 million bpd in November, the EIA said.
Output from the Permian basin of Texas and New Mexico, the top shale-producing region in the country, is set to rise to a record for a sixth straight month, the EIA said. The pace of growth, however, is expected to slow, the agency noted.
Permian oil production in December is expected to total around 5.981 million bpd, up from 5.976 million bpd in November.
Total natural gas output in the big shale basins will fall by about 0.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) to 99.6 Bcf/d in December, EIA projected. That compares with a monthly record of 100.4 Bcf/d in August.
That puts gas output on track to decline for a record fourth consecutive month in December, according to EIA data going back to 2007.
In the biggest shale gas basin, Appalachia in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, output is set to slide 0.2 Bcf/d to 35.8 Bcf/d in December, its lowest since May. Appalachia output hit a record 36.2 Bcf/d in September.
EIA said it expects new Appalachia gas well production per rig to edge up to 25.02 per million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) in December from 25.01 MMcf/d in November.
That small increase follows 34 straight months of declining well productivity and a drop in the number of rigs operating in Appalachia to just 39 in October, the lowest since October 2021.
EIA said producers drilled 859 oil and gas wells in October, the lowest since February 2022, and completed just 951, the lowest since December 2022.
Total drilled-but-uncompleted (DUC) oil and gas wells dropped by 92 to 4,524 in October, the lowest since December 2013.
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