U.S. crude oil production is expected to rise by 850,000 barrels per day to record 12.76 million bpd in 2023, according to a monthly report from the Energy Information Administration on Tuesday.
Crude oil production is expected to rise by 330,000 barrels per day to 13.09 million bpd in 2024, EIA data showed.
The last record output was 12.3 million bpd in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic crushed demand and prices, and drillers were hit by higher costs that squeezed profit margins and investor demands to limit spending.
The increases in forecasts are due to come as a result of higher expected well-level productivity and higher crude oil prices, the EIA said.
Global benchmark Brent crude oil prices are due to average $86 per barrel in the second half of 2023, up about $7 per barrel from the previous forecast, the EIA said. U.S. GDP growth is expected to rise increase by 1.9% in 2023, up from 1.5% in last month’s forecast, the EIA said.
Crude prices have been rising since June, primarily because of extended voluntary cuts to Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production as well as increasing global demand.
“We expect these factors will continue to reduce global oil inventories and put upward pressure on oil prices in the coming months,” the EIA said.
Rising global oil production in 2024 is expected to keep pace with oil demand and put downward pressure on crude oil prices beginning in the second quarter of 2024, it added.
U.S. total petroleum consumption is forecast to rise by 200,000 bpd to 20.5 million bpd in 2023, and is forecast to rise by another 200,000 bpd to 20.7 million bpd in 2024, the data showed.
The EIA has reversed its forecast of a supply deficit in the global oil markets for 2023, with the agency now expecting a sharper increase in non-OPEC OECD output than earlier. It had last month forecast that world petroleum consumption would outpace production this year.
In the natural gas market, U.S. production and demand will rise to record highs in 2023, the EIA said in the same monthly report.
It projected that dry gas production will rise to 103 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in 2023 and 104.12 bcfd in 2024 from a record 98.13 bcfd in 2022.
The agency also projected that domestic gas consumption would rise from a record 88.53 bcfd in 2022 to 89.34 bcfd in 2023 before sliding to 87.88 bcfd in 2024.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Shariq Khan; Editing by Mark Porter and Marguerita Choy)