Crude oil stockpiles in the United States rose by 3.7 million barrels to stand at 459.7 million barrels in the week ending June 7, the US Energy Information Administration shared in its report on Wednesday. The crude oil refinery inputs in the country averaged 17 million barrels per day, falling by 98,000 barrels per day from the average recorded in the week prior. Refineries operated at 95% of their capacity, while gasoline production rose to an average of 10.1 million barrels per day. Imports of crude oil into the US averaged 8.3 million barrels per day, 1.2 million barrels per day more in comparison to the previous week. Total commercial petroleum inventories surged by 11.5 million barrels.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its June 2024 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) today. The EIA expects U.S. crude oil production to average 13.2 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2024—an increase of 2% from 2023 levels. The EIA sees U.S. crude oil production averaging 13.7 million bpd in 2025.The increase in production will be led by the Permian, according to the EIA, and Eagle Ford This production outlook remains unchanged from the May version of the Short-Term Energy Outlook. Meanwhile, weekly U.S. crude oil production data published by the Energy Administration Information has held at an average of13.1 million barrels per day every week for the last twelve weeks.
For their global oil production outlook, the EIA sees OPEC+ largely adhering to its production targets announced earlier this month. While OPEC+ extended its production cuts, “our expectation is that OPEC+ crude oil production will follow these new targets until 2025. At that time, we expect that some OPEC+ producers will keep production below the targets in an effort to limit global oil inventory builds,” the EIA said in its report. While crude oil production forecasts have held steady, pricing forecasts have not. In terms of pricing, the EIA is now forecasting Brent crude oil prices to average $84 per barrel in 2024, up from an average of $82 per barrel in 2023 and $101 per barrel in 2022. The EIA’s previous report forecast 2024 Brent spot pricing at $88 For next year, the EIA held its Brent price forecast steady at $85 per barrel. For natural gas, the report anticipates Henry Hub natural gas spot prices to average $2.50 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2024—steady on 2023 levels but up from the $2.20/MMBtu forecasted for 2024 last month, with the agency forecasting U.S. marketed natural gas production increasing by 2% next year. For 2025, the EIA anticipates $3.20/MMBtu for natural gas.