US gas prices are falling. Experts point to mild demand at the pump ahead of summer travel

New U.S. crude oil and natural gas production data. This month we are publishing regional crude oil and natural gas production data. These data provide a regional breakout of domestic crude oil and natural gas production in existing production tables and introduce some data series previously published in the Drilling Productivity Report and Shale Gas and Tight Oil into the STEO. • U.S. crude oil production. U.S. crude oil production grows in our forecast by 2% from 2023 to an annual average of 13.2 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2024 and by another 4% in 2025 to 13.7 million b/d. Increasing production is led by the Permian region, which is the source of almost 50% of domestic crude oil production, followed by the Eagle Ford region and the Federal Gulf of Mexico. • OPEC+ crude oil production. In our May outlook, we had assumed OPEC+ would begin to relax some voluntary production cuts beginning in the third quarter of 2024 (3Q24). In line with the group’s recent announcement, we now expect OPEC+ will begin relaxing voluntary cuts in 4Q24. As a result, we expect that the extension of voluntary OPEC+ production cuts will cause global oil inventories to continue falling through 1Q25. Although we expect crude oil prices to rise from early June levels, lower-than-expected Brent prices in May mean our forecast for 2024 is $84/b, 4% lower than our May forecast. • Natural gas production. We expect U.S. marketed natural gas production to fall by 1% in 2024 because of low natural gas prices. Ma post: #OOTT | EIA STEO Current Yr Crude F'cast (Bpd) Jun: 13.24M (prev 13.20M) - Forward Yr Crude F'cast (Bpd): 13.71M (prev 13.73M) - Current Yr Dry NatGas F'cast (Bcf/d): 102.05 (prev 102.99) - Forward Yr Dry NatGas F'cast (Bcf/d): 104.40 (prev 104.79) https://t.co/lrkVjEBv5L pic.twitter.com/p0RMESrtze EIA expects crude oil production in the Permian Basin to increase by nearly 8% in 2024 The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects crude oil production in the Permian Basin to average about 6.3 million barrels per day in 2024, an increase of nearly 8% from 2023. The Permian Basin accounts for nearly half of U.S. crude oil production, and EIA expects increased production in the Permian and other regions will drive U.S. oil production to successive records in 2024 and 2025. EIA has expanded its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts to include regional trends in the primary oil and natural gas production regions in the United States—Appalachia, Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, and Permian. “Incorporating regional forecasts of oil and natural gas production helps us tell a more comprehensive story of hydrocarbon production trends in the United States,” said EIA Administrator Joe DeCarolis. “Consider the natural gas market, where we’ve seen prices decline far more rapidly than production. We knew that associated natural gas, which is produced as a byproduct of increasing crude oil production, was a driver of relatively stable natural gas production. Now our forecasts clearly show the important regional relationship of oil and natural gas production.” EIA expects U.S. marketed natural gas production to decrease slightly more than 1% in 2024 in response to low natural gas prices. Production is forecast to increase in the Permian, Bakken, and Eagle Ford regions this year, while declining