US Crude plus Condensate and Tight Oil, Jan 2018 Update

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From Dec 2016 to Dec 2017 US Tight oil output has increased by 975 kb/d based on US tight oil output data from the EIA.

For the entire US we only have EIA monthly output estimates through Oct 2017. Over the Dec 2016 to Oct 2017 period US output has increased by 866 kb/d and the OLS trend has a slope of 821 kb/d.

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Note that the 866 kb/d increase in US output over 10 months would be a 1040 kb/d increase over a 12 month period.

Most of the increase in US output has been from increased LTO output. The forecasts by several agencies (EIA, IEA, and OPEC) of more than a 1000 kb/d increase in US output in 2018 may assume that the recently increased oil price level will lead to increased investment in the oil sector.

Much of the increase in LTO output has been in the Permian basin and several factors may slow down the recent rapid growth. Among these are limited fracking crews, inadequate pipeline capacity for natural gas, which will limit output as flaring limits are reached, and potential water shortages.

Longer term the various LTO plays will run out of space to drill more wells in the tier one areas (the so-called sweet-spots) and this will limit the rate of increase within 2 or 3 years. It is likely that the Eagle Ford is close to this point, the Bakken might reach that point by 2019, and the Permian basin perhaps by 2021.

For US C+C output, I expect about a 600+/-100 kb/d increase in 2018.

Texas Update- November 2017

Dean Fantazzini has provided his latest estimates of Texas oil and natural gas output.

His analysis is based on RRC data only. Each RRC data set from Jan 2014 to Sept 2017 for crude and from April 2014 to Sept 2017 for condensate and natural gas are used in the “all data” estimate, the most recent 49 months of data are collected for each individual data set. After March 2016 there was a shift in the data for crude and condensate so for the C+C estimate, I include an estimate which uses all data from April 2016 to the most recent data point (“Corrected 18 month vintage”). Dean prefers to present an “all vintage data” estimate and an estimate using only the most recent 3 months “correction factors”. For Sept 2017 the all vintage data estimate is 3174 kb/d, the last 3 month vintage estimate is 2957 kb/d, and the last 18 month vintage estimate is 3039 kb/d with falls of 68, 96, and 80 kb/d respectively from the previous month.

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GoM July Production Update

A Guest Post by George Kaplan

GoM C&C production for July by BOEM was 1746 kbpd and by EIA 1761, compared with, respectively, 1631 and 1634 kbpd (corrected) in June. The EIA number is a new peak, the BOEM one is still 24 kbpd short of their March numbers. The growth was from Thunder Horse (partially), Constitution and Baldpate/Salsa (which is mostly gas) coming back on-line, plus continued ramp-up in Stones and Marmalard.

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C&C Production Details

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