Todays EIA report states lower 48 oil production declined from 10.7 to 10.6 million barrels
The round up or down, so you can't conclude that's a 100,000 decline.
But you can conclude there was a decline at a time of high drill rig activity
This appears to be one more data point that indicates US peak oil production
It's almost too hard to comprehend that US oil production may be at the tipping point
it means the worlds oil swing producer is unable to replace declines. It's running short of oil. It seems impossible to believe
But this is what the data is saying.
The weekly EIA oil number is an estimate. The actual number comes out 2 months later
Pretty well all year that actual number has been 250,000 boe less than the estimate
Ie - todays current US production is probably about 11.75 million barrels
The US is increasing its active drill rigs. But it's getting less oil per well.
Now it's starting to look like adding more rigs can't produce enough oil to replace declines
When you hit the tipping point you can do things like add more rigs and drill more holes; make the horizontal legs longer per hole, mark the rigs more efficient etc
All those steps cover up the underlying problem. Until they can't
Its like pushing a snow ball down hill. It starts slowly. Very few notice at first
But it keeps going - and gets faster and bigger as it goes
More rigs. Longer horizontals. Better efficiency. When that adds up to less total production there's a big problem
It can't be bottle necks or hurricanes - because there weren't any
If it were pipeline limits then production would be flat, not declining
Usually the simple reason is the actual reason
The simple reason would be the US has drilled its best locations and is now drilling what's left. Translation - the US is running short of oil