To lease or not to lease. Taken to court. Many thing are causing turmoil in the energy business but Louisiana keeps producing.
Louisiana’s production of crude oil and natural gas has inched upward in recent months, putting it among the top states for month-to-month gains. The state’s producers extracted an average of 103,000 barrels of oil per day in April, up 4.3% from a 99,000 barrel-per-day average in March, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The April figures are the latest statistics available. The state’s producers extracted an average of 103,000 barrels of oil per day in April, up 4.3% from a 99,000 barrel-per-day average in March, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The April figures are the latest statistics available.
theadvocate.com
We may have been up more but many others were up also. Is it Ukraine or n ormal summer production?
Five other states saw gains from March to April: New Mexico (2.7%), Oklahoma (2.1%), Wyoming (1.3%), Texas (0.7%) and Alaska (0.5%). In terms of total output, Louisiana’s 103,000 barrel-per-day figure in April ranked 10th among oil-producing states. Texas easily led the pack with more than 5 million barrels per day. The Gulf of Mexico pumped out 1.76 million barrels daily. As a whole, the U.S. averaged 11.63 million barrels per day in April, down slightly from 11.68 million in March. Louisiana’s tally of rigs exploring for oil and gas is hovering around 65 so far in July, according to Baker Hughes. That’s up slightly from 62 in June but is up from 54 in February and 39 in September.
We also did increases in natural gas but not the top producer.
On the natural gas side, Louisiana saw similar gains. The state produced 10.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily in April, up 3.2% from March’s 10.1 billion count. Louisiana’s growth trailed only Oklahoma’s 4.7% jump. Gulf of Mexico natural gas production was up 6.6%. Among natural gas-producing states, Texas (30.8 billion cubic feet) and Pennsylvania (20.6 billion) extracted more than Louisiana. The U.S. as a whole produced nearly 117.3 billion cubic feet in April. The gains come at a time when energy markets are in upheaval because of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The price of crude oil spiked after the war began, leading to painfully high gasoline prices across the globe. Natural gas is still cheap in the U.S., but there have been calls to ship more of it abroad, particularly as Europe finds itself struggling to meet energy demands with Russia shutting off its pipelines. That move that has rankled environmental advocacy groups who have long called for moving away from fossil fuels.
Both renewables and oil and gas are rising in use as the battle for the top producer of energy continues. My bet is on renewables but don’t see oil disappearing.
