The federal government’s predicting oil output from the seven major shale formations in the U.S. will increase by 79,000 barrels a day, reaching 7.6 million bpd by October.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Monday the output from the formations boosted total U.S. crude production to a record high of nearly 10.7 million barrels a day in June, the latest month for which data is available.
The EIA report predicted production in the Permian formation in Texas and New Mexico, the largest of the shale producers is expected to increase 31,000 barrels a day.
The output from the five other major shale formations, including the Anadarko Basin which covers Oklahoma and a small part of the Texas Panhandle, will grow as well. The Haynesville shale is the smallest tracked by the EIA and it was expected to remain unchanged at 43,000 bpd in the month.
The Anadarko region is expected to see its production increase from an average of one oil rig of 408 barrels a day in September to 411 bpd in October. Its natural gas production, according to the EIA will grow from an average rig of 2,881 Mcf a day to 2,904 Mcf a day.
From September to October, the Anadarko’s oil production is expected to increase 8,000 barrels a day. Natural gas production will grow by 98 million cubic feet a day from September to October.
Production per rig from new wells was expected to rise in all formations except for the Permian Basin, where it was expected to decline by nine barrels a day.
Meanwhile, U.S. natural gas production was projected to increase to a record 73.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in October. That would be up almost 1 bcfd over the September forecast and would be the ninth monthly increase in a row.
In October 2017 output was just 60.3 bcfd.
Output in the Appalachia region, the biggest shale gas play, was set to rise almost 0.3 bcfd to a record high of 29.4 bcfd in October. Production in Appalachia was 24.2 bcfd in the same month a year ago.
EIA said producers drilled 1,520 wells and completed 1,282 in the biggest shale basins in August, leaving total drilled but uncompleted wells up 238 at a record high 8,269, according to data going back to December 2013.
That was the most wells drilled and completed in a month since early 2015, according to EIA data.