The New Year is looking rosy and bright for oil producers after a post-holiday rally saw prices jump almost 3% on Tuesday.And the gusher could keep flowing — south of the border at least — after the US government’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) numbers suggest American producers smashed all-time production records in 2023 and are on track to exceed them again in 2024..Oil prices were up about USD$2 in the first trading day since the holiday break, topping $75.50 for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and $81.11 for UK Brent. Alberta’s Western Canadian Select (WCS) was up almost 4% to $65.88 per barrel.Although trading volumes were lighter than usual given that some markets were still closed on Tuesday, that’s the highest since December 12 when WTI was trading below $68 and builds on advances in the past week over shipping concerns in the Red Sea and the ongoing war in the Middle East.It also comes after Angola’s decision to quit the OPEC cartel in a dispute over production quotas. Not that it matters much in the bigger picture; the South African nation produces about 1.1 million barrels per day, a number which is falling due to lower spending and investment levels in its ageing fields..By contrast, the US produced about 13 million barrels per day in 2023, the highest since the pandemic in 2019 and an all-time record. Although the EIA’s official numbers won’t be finalized for several more weeks, average weekly production in November was 13.2 million barrels per day.Assuming it holds to the end of the year, that means the US produced in excess of 4.5 billion barrels last year, a feat that’s never been equalled by any other country on Earth. That’s on top of an expected 4% jump in natural gas, which is also likely to be an all-time record.The EIA expects the Lower 48 pushed out 103.72 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day from a record 99.6 bcf per day in 2022. That figure is expected to climb again in 2024, to 105.13 bcf per day, freeing up around 15 bcf per day — an amount equivalent to almost all of Canada’s production — for LNG exports.
