By Stephanie Kelly and Scott DiSavino
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. field production of crude oil rose in March to 12.696 million barrels per day, the highest since March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to decimate global energy demand, Energy Information Administration data showed on Wednesday.
The higher crude output came as production in Texas rose 1.8% to 5.398 million bpd, also its highest since March 2020, the EIA data showed.
Consumption of crude oil has ticked higher since the pandemic and after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year caused a global reshuffling of oil and its products.
Production in North Dakota fell 2.9% to 1.095 million bpd, the lowest since January. In New Mexico, output gained 1.2% to a record high 1.824 million bpd.
Meanwhile, U.S. product supplied of crude and petroleum products – a proxy for demand – rose to 20.449 million bpd, the highest since November 2022, EIA data showed.
Product supplied of finished motor gasoline rose in March to 9.007 million bpd, the highest since August 2022.
Gross natural gas production in the U.S. Lower 48 states, meanwhile, rose 0.8 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to a record 113.8 bcfd in March, according to the EIA’s monthly 914 production report. That topped the prior all-time high of 112.9 bcfd in February 2023.
In top gas-producing states, monthly output in March rose 1.3% to 20.7 bcfd in Pennsylvania and 2.3% to a record 33.0 bcfd in Texas. That topped the prior all-time high in Texas of 32.4 bcfd in January 2023 and compares with the record 21.8 bcfd in Pennsylvania in December 2021.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Scott DiSavino in New York and Shariq Khan in Bengaluru, Editing by Marguerita Choy and Will Dunham)
