U.S. crude oil and natural gas producers were bringing wells back online on Wednesday following a severe winter storm that swept across the country over the weekend, straining energy infrastructure and power grids.
Domestic crude output is now estimated to be down around 600,000 barrels per day, roughly 4% of total output, according to consultancy Energy Aspects, compared with a peak loss of 2 million bpd on Saturday.
The Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, which accounts for around half of U.S. crude production, was down around 250,000 bpd according to Energy Aspects, also roughly 4% of the shale play’s output.
There were also ongoing outages across the Bakken oilfield in North Dakota, and the Anadarko in Oklahoma.
Natural gas output was down around 12 billion cubic feet per day as of Wednesday, or around 10% of national production, according to analysts at consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
Producers had 5.1 bcfd offline in the Permian, and 3.3 bcfd of outages in Louisiana’s Haynesville shale basin.
Peak loss of natural gas output occurred on Monday, at 18.1 bcfd or roughly 15% of total output, analysts added, with the Permian taking the lion’s share of losses that day, at 8.3 bcfd.
(Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Hugh Lawson)