Increased
oil output in the US has kept World oil output from declining over the past few
years and a major question is how long this can continue. Poor estimates by both the US Energy
Information Administration (EIA) and the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) for
Texas state wide crude plus condensate (C+C) output make it difficult to
predict when a sustained decline in US output will begin.
About 80 to
85% of Texas (TX) C+C output is from the Permian basin and the Eagle Ford play,
so estimating output from these two formations is crucial. I have used data from the production data
query (PDQ) at the RRC to find the percentage of TX C+C output from the Permian
(about 44% in Feb 2015) and Eagle Ford plays (40% in Feb 2015). Dean’s estimates of Texas C+C output are
excellent in my opinion and are close to EIA estimates through August
2014. I used EIA data for TX C+C output
through August 2014 and Dean’s best estimate from Sept 2014 to Feb 2015. By multiplying the % of C+C output from the
RRC data with the combined EIA and Dean estimate, I was able to estimate Eagle
Ford and Permian output. The chart below
shows this output in kb/d.
