Oil, gas both reach production highs, but falling prices will drag output down
Crude oil and condensate. U.S. crude oil production surged broadly across different regions in 2014, particularly in the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale plays of North Dakota and Texas, respectively. Crude oil prices spent much of the summer of 2014 hovering above $100/bbl, which kept operators’ gaze firmly fixed on petroleum liquids. As prices declined modestly into the fall, production kept up a blistering pace, surpassing 9 MMbpd in October.
Then came the notorious Thanksgiving-Day meeting of OPEC, where the organization announced it would make no attempt to support oil prices in response to surging North American production. The subsequent plunge in crude prices into the mid-$40/bbl range has most definitely affected the exploration plans of energy companies worldwide, but had no immediate impact on output.
Region-by-region, the gainers outnumbered losers by a wide margin in 2014. The North Slope of Alaska saw a continuation of the decline of its aging oil fields. The area experienced a sharper-than-usual midsummer seasonal decline, falling below 400,000 bopd in August 2014. On average, the state’s output stayed just above 500,000 bopd, a drop of almost 3% from 2013 (and 52% below 2001’s peak output month).
Among the gainers, Texas easily held on to its spot as the number-one oil producer in North America, hitting an average of 3.4 MMbopd in 2014, up a whopping 19% from the year before. The largest share of that surge came in the traditional oil region of the Permian basin in West Texas, with the newer Eagle Ford shale of South Texas following close behind. All told, the Lone Star state produced over a billion and a quarter barrels of black gold last year.
Louisiana, on and offshore, kept the state in a firm second place among domestic oil producers, managing to eke out an 8% increase over 2013 to 1.3 MMbopd. North Dakota’s Bakken shale region came up close behind, and saw its crude output surpass a million bopd in 2014.
Other large oil producers saw significant increases. California reversed several years of declining producing with a solid 600,000 bopd in 2014, while New Mexico’s output jumped 15% to average over 325,000 bopd.
Natural gas. Relatively low but stable prices kept the lid on gas exploration and development in 2014. However, production continued its upward trajectory to average over 7.2 MMcfdg. A small but significant shift back toward natural gas as a target is expected to keep gas production up to pressure in 2015. 
- The last barrel (February 2024)
- What's new in production (February 2024)
- E&P outside the U.S. maintains a disciplined pace (February 2024)
- Prices and governmental policies combine to stymie Canadian upstream growth (February 2024)
- U.S. operators reduce activity as crude prices plunge (February 2024)
- U.S. producing gas wells increase despite low prices (February 2024)
