January Data From Texas May Show Production Decline Underway

The Texas Rail Road Commission has released its latest stats with production numbers through January. There is always a delay in these numbers and that is why you see the production graph lines seem to droop toward the recent months. Because of this I post six months data so the data can be compared in order to gain a better insight into which way production is heading.

All Texas oil and gas data is through January. The Oil data is in barrels per day and the gas data is in MCF.

Texas condensate will likely show a small gain when the data is finally in. Either way it will not be enough to make much difference in the final C+C January production.

I believe Texas crude only will be down in January. This shows a huge decline from the December incomplete data. The EIA data is through December only.

That is a huge difference between the December and January incomplete data, a decline of 166,000 barrels per day. Of course that will very likely tighten up over the coming few months but there just should not be that kind of difference. Obviously there was a huge increase in December production but I think Texas January production will be a huge shock to the EIA as well as the investing crowd.

Related: Is US Oil Production Finally About To Fall?

It looks like Texas associated gas also took a huge hit in January. This makes sense. If crude oil production was down then the gas that comes up with the oil should be down also. The raw data was down 433,628 MCF from the December raw numbers.

Texas gas well gas was down a huge amount also. The raw numbers were down 650,182 MCF from the December raw numbers.

Texas total gas, raw data, was down 1,082,810 MCF from the raw data in December.

Obviously all this data is incomplete. But relatively the same percentage of companies were reporting their data for January as were for December. Therefore the raw numbers should give some indication of which way production is headed. At any rate shale oil production did not “continue to surge upward” as the EIA and IEA originally reported. They just had to make a huge mistake in their calculations.

Related: Why Royalty Trusts Might Be A Good Buy Now

I expect total US C+C production to be down in January. I won’t say by how much but I believe the numbers will not be positive.

This chart was published on Art Berman’s Blog, which is the best blog on the net dealing with shale oil and gas. The data however is from the EIA. Where JODI has US production down 34,000 bpd in January, the EIA has US production up 60,000 bpd in January.

This is one of Art Berman’s charts also. I find it interesting in that it tells us how much oil comes from horizontal wells and how much comes from other wells. I worked the percentages out. For the Permian it’s 55% horizontal, Eagle ford is 99.7% horizontal and the Bakken is 99.8% horizontal wells. The rest comes from vertical wells.

Related: Oil Price Speed Limit Presaging An Age Of Austerity?

The Baker Hughes Rig Count is out.

Texas again took the biggest hit, down 36 rigs in one week. Williston is at 99. This does not count the rigs that are in the process of moving in and rigging up. Canada was down another 80 rigs. This is the season for rigs to drop in Canada but nevertheless they are down 249 rigs from the same point last year.

By Ron Patterson

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

• Forget About Keystone XL – Canadian Crude Is Coming
• The Latest OPEC Monthly Production Figures
• The Reemergence Of The WTI/Brent Spread