Permian and Gulf of Mexico regions expected to drive continued record-high U.S. crude oil production through 2020 (2/21/2019)

The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) February 2019 update of its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.4 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2019 and 13.2 million b/d in 2020. If realized, both of these forecast levels would surpass the record high of 11.0 million b/d set in 2018, keeping the United States as the world’s largest producer of crude oil. Overall U.S. crude oil production increases are largely the result of continued production growth in the tight-oil formations in the Permian region, as well as the expectation for 19 new projects to start in 2019 and 2020 in the Federal Offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) (Figure 1). ... More »