US crude and natural gas production recovers after winter storms ravage output

U.S. crude and?natural-gas producers brought wells online on Wednesday following a severe storm that swept across the country at the weekend. The storm strained energy infrastructure and power systems.

According to Energy Aspects consultancy, domestic crude production is down by around 600,000 barrels a day. This represents 4% of the total output. On Saturday, it was estimated that there had been a loss of up to 2 million barrels bpd.

According to Energy Aspects the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico, which is responsible for about half of U.S. oil production, has seen a decline of around 250,000 barrels per day. This represents 4% of shale's total output.

Justin Kringstad of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority said that as of Wednesday, nearly all of North Dakota's lost crude production due to?cold weather?was back online.

Storms in the state caused a loss of around 80,000-110,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil production.

Kringstad stated that he did not expect any further curtailments to occur in the near future, due to the relatively mild conditions of the winter and the limited precipitation expected in the next week.

Wood Mackenzie analysts say that the national natural gas production was down by around 12 billion cubic foot per day on Wednesday. This is around 10% of total national production. The Permian basin was offline for 5.1 bcfd, while Louisiana's Haynesville Shale Basin experienced 3.3 bcfd outages. Analysts noted that the peak loss in natural gas production occurred on Monday at?18.1bcfd or approximately 15% of the total output. The Permian basin took the majority of the losses, at 8.3bcfd. Reporting by Georgina Mccartney in Houston, Editing by Chizu nomiyama Hugh Lawson Paul Simao

(source: Reuters)