Haynesville Continuing to Lead Natural Gas Production Growth in Latest EIA Projections

 By Jeremiah Shelor  September 12, 2022 naturalgasintel.com

Spearheaded by the Haynesville Shale, natural gas production from seven key U.S. onshore regions will approach 95 Bcf/d in October, according to the latest modeling from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Combined output from the Haynesville — along with the Anadarko, Appalachian and Permian basins, as well as the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Niobrara formations — will rise to 94.741 Bcf/d in October, a 606 MMcf/d sequential increase, EIA said.

The latest projections, part of EIA’s monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), show the Haynesville leading with month/month natural gas production growth of 188 MMcf/d. The Permian (up 152 MMcf/d), Eagle Ford (up 119 MMcf/d) and Appalachian (up 91 MMcf/d) regions are expected to follow close behind.

EIA is modeling smaller natural gas production gains for the Bakken (up 32 MMcf/d), Niobrara (up 15 MMcf/d) and Anadarko (up 9 MMcf/d) regions.

Crude Up Too

Crude oil production from the seven regions, meanwhile, is poised to increase by 132,000 b/d from September to October, reaching 9.115 million b/d, according to the latest DPR data.

The Permian is on track to lead with 66,000 b/d of incremental production, with 26,000 b/d of growth expected from the Eagle Ford and an increase of 21,000 b/d predicted for the Bakken. EIA also predicted output gains for the Anadarko (up 8,000 b/d), Appalachia (up 2,000 b/d) and Niobrara (up 9,000 b/d) regions.

EIA’s latest count of drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells across the seven regions fell to 4,283 from July to August, down 16 sequentially. 

The Permian drew down its DUC backlog by 19 wells from July to August, with the Appalachia (down eight), Anadarko (down seven) and Bakken (down one) regions also depleting their respective DUC backlogs for the period, according to EIA.

The Niobrara (up nine), Haynesville (up eight) and Eagle Ford (up two) regions each added DUC wells month/month, the DPR data show.

EIA’s DPR makes use of recent rig data along with drilling productivity estimates and estimated changes in production from existing wells to model changes in production from the seven regions.