EIA expects new milestones for US crude oil production

The EIA expects sustained global demand for petroleum products and Saudi Arabia’s extended voluntary production cuts will contribute to oil prices rising through the year. The Brent crude oil price was near US$75/b at the beginning of July and increased throughout the month to surpass US$86/b on 4 August 2023. The EIA forecasts the Brent crude oil price to increase for the rest of 2023 and to approach US$90/b in late 2023.

EIA Administrator, Joe DeCarolis, said:"We forecast continued growth in domestic oil production, which is bolstered by higher oil prices and higher well productivity in the near term."

The EIA also forecasts US regular gasoline prices will average about US$3.63/gal. for the rest of 2023, an increase from its previous forecast of US$3.27/gal. Higher gasoline prices are largely the result of higher crude oil prices and a series of unplanned US refinery outages so far this summer.

Also in the August STEO, the EIA expects that the high temperatures of July 2023 and resulting demand for air conditioning led to near-record levels of electricity consumption. It is estimated that approximately 388 billion kW/h of electricity was consumed in the US during July, about equal to the record for monthly US consumption set in August 2022.

"Most of the country felt some brutal heat in July, and just like last summer, that heat significantly increased electricity consumption," DeCarolis added.

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