Why U.S. oil production hasn’t rebounded along with crude prices – By Myra P. Saefong (Marketwatch) / December 17, 2021
Oil prices have rallied back to their per-pandemic levels and then some, but U.S. crude production has yet to fully rebound, as coronavirus variants wreck havoc on the outlook for economic activity and energy demand.
“Higher oil prices should encourage more drilling,” said Marshall Steeves, energy markets analyst at IHS Markit. That’s “likely forthcoming to some degree in the coming year.”
But it seems unlikely that output will climb to the 13.1 million barrels per day pre-pandemic peak from February 2020 anytime soon, “given the comparative slow recovery in investment,” he told MarketWatch.
U.S. crude-oil production this year is expected to average 11.18 million barrels per day, which would still be below the average 11.28 million barrels per day seen in 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration. For 2022, the EIA expects output to move up to an average of 11.85 million barrels per day.
