The US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) this week came out with its most bullish 2018 output forecasts yet. Further massive gains are slated for 2019. Crude output will average 10.27mn b/d this year, the EIA says, a new record and up almost 1mn b/d on 2017. It will continue to rise throughout not just 2018 but 2019 as well, hitting 10.6mn b/d in December 2018 and over 11mn by late 2019, by then topping Russia as the world’s top producer.
The US is already well ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia as the number one oil producer when NGLs are added to crude. US NGLs output, and that of gas with which it is largely associated, has hit a series of records over the past year, most recently 3.97mn b/d for October 2017. It is slated to rise further, averaging 4.21mn b/d for 2018 (up 13.5% on 2017) and 4.57mn b/d for 2019. (CONTINUED - 1056 WORDS)
