Texas Permian Basin will increase production by 11,000 b/d to 2.02 million b/d
U.S. shale oil production is expected to fall for the eighth consecutive month in December, according to a forecast released Monday from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The monthly total output decline will be 1118,000 b/d, to 4.95 million b/d.
An outlier is the Permian Basin in West Texas, which has shale oil production projected to rise 11,000 b/d to 2.02 million b/d.
Production from Eagle Ford in South Texas is expected to fall 78,000 b/d to 1.28 million b/d.
North Dakota’s Bakken play is expected to drop 27,000 b/d to 1.11 million b/d.
Also, natural gas was also expected to fall for the sixth month in a row, total output set to decline 0.4 billion cubic feet per day, the biggest decline in two years according to the EIA data.
According to Reuters, the biggest decline was expected to be in the Marcellus region in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, down 1.2 billion cubic feet per day.
The Marcellus region is the largest shale gas play in the U.S, and this would mark the first year after year decline since the boom of 2008.