U.S. crude oil production is growing, but at a slower pace than predicted.
American oil production in May actually inched down from April by 0.3 percent, according to EIA’s Monthly Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production report. U.S. crude oil production for the month of May stood at 10.442 million bpd, compared to 10.472 million bpd in April.
The figure for May, based on surveys of producers, is down by nearly 300,000 bpd compared to the earlier EIA estimate for 10.749 million bpd oil production for May, with this estimate based on forecasts.
The weekly estimates for May all point to more than 10.7 million bpd of crude oil production, but the more accurate—albeit lagged—data, based on survey of producers, shows that U.S. oil output had trailed projections by around 300,000 bpd.
To be sure, production jumped from a year ago—by 13.3 percent from the 9.217 million bpd production in May last year.
The EIA currently estimates that the June production would be 10.900 million bpd, but the revision to the May figure suggests that the output for June could be lower than the expected 10.9 million bpd, according to Bloomberg.
The data for May is still subject to further revision, EIA spokesman Paul Hesse told Bloomberg.
In the monthly crude oil production report this week, the EIA revised up the production numbers for April, by 5,000 bpd.
EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) from July forecasts that U.S. crude oil production will average 10.8 million bpd this year, up from 9.4 million bpd in 2017. Crude oil production is currently expected to average 11.8 million bpd in 2019.
For oil prices, EIA expects Brent Crude spot prices to average $73 a barrel in the second half of 2018 and $69 per barrel in 2019, with WTI Crude averaging $6 a barrel lower than Brent prices in the second half of 2018 and $7 per barrel lower in 2019.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
