• The US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) has revised down its expectations for the fall in crude output in both 2016 and 2017. It now forecasts 2016 output of 8.77mn b/d, down 650,000 b/d on 2015’s record 9.42mn b/d. For 2017 it forecasts 8.51mn b/d, down a further 260,000 b/d on 2016. These falls are markedly lower than those forecast earlier this year: in April – coming on the back of Q1 average WTI prices of $33/B – the EIA had forecast falls of 830,000 b/d and 560,000 b/d for 2016 and 2017 respectively. The latest 2017 forecast is up 200,000 b/d on that made just last month (see chart).
• The EIA’s September Short Term Energy Outlook has output bottoming out this month at 8.37mn b/d (this an 80,000 b/d hike on last month’s forecast) before edging up to 8.5-8.6mn b/d in Q4 and largely flat lining at this level in 2017 (apart from a Q3 dip due to anticipated “hurricane-related outages”). However, NGLs output, which hit a record 3.62mn b/d in June, will continue to rise strongly, hitting 4.04mn b/d by end-2017. (CONTINUED - 316 WORDS)
