US Lower 48 Crude Output Down 379,000 Bpd in January on Storm Outages

U.S. crude output is expected to be down 379,000 barrels per day in the lower 48 states for the month of January, according to consultancy Rystad, as operators kept restoring production after a winter storm knocked off up to 2 million bpd of output last weekend.

U.S. crude output from the lower 48 states was forecast to total 11.24 million bpd in January, the Energy Information Administration said this month, putting current outages at around 3.4% of output.

The Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, which accounts for around half of U.S. crude production, is set to take the lion’s share of January outages, down by 237,000 bpd, according to Rystad.

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All of North Dakota’s crude production was back online on Friday, state regulators said.

North Dakota is the third-largest oil-producing U.S. state, and output totaled 1.189 million barrels per day in November, the latest monthly data from the state’s Industrial Commission showed.

Oil prices retreated on Friday after surging 3% to a five-month high on Thursday on rising concerns that global supplies could be disrupted if the U.S. attacks Iran.

“Global supplies remain ample but demand remains a bit stronger than expected, and the latest cold spell has hampered U.S. production,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial.29dk2902l

(Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and David Gregorio)