Oil production growth expected at record levels

Fuel Fix:
Driven by the shale boom, the United States in 2014 will hit its highest daily oil production level since 1988 and will grow oil output at the highest rate ever, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted Tuesday.

U.S. daily oil production, which averaged 6.4 million barrels a day in 2012, will surge 23 percent to average 7.9 million barrels a day in 2014, the administration said.

The daily production rate will jump 900,000 barrels between 2012 and 2013, a record for growth in a single year, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski said in a conference call with reporters. The previous record of 800,000 barrels per day was set a year ago and was the largest one-year jump since 1951. Oil was first produced in the United States in 1859.

“That is the largest single-year growth in U.S. production all the way back to the drake oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859,” Sieminski said. “That is pretty impressive.”

While the administration is confident in its predictions, Sieminski said any regulatory changes that affect production of oil and gas from shale could change the outlook.

“If there were to be changes associated with hydraulic fracturing, which is the basis for the growth in natural gas and oil, that would raise costs in that area that could have some impact,” Sieminski said.

The trend of production growth will come along with a drop in oil prices that is expected to bring gasoline prices down for consumers, the administration said.
... 
Obama must be disappointed to learn that we can drill ou way out of the enemy shortage he and Democrats have been trying to create for years so they could push inefficient alternative energy.  Obama is still determined to waste money on alternatives and he is also using federal regulation to strangle domestic production in sites they control.  If they opened up all the coastal areas of the US as well as federal land in the Western US and Alaska, we could easily beat the estimate in this report.

In the meantime, Texas, North Dakota and Oklahoma will continue to drill for oil and Ohio and Pennsylvania will also drill for gas.  New York and Maryland are too frightened by fracking to give it a try.  There is a possibility of some drilling in California in a shale play that could be very big and also speed up production.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains