Lower oil and gas prices reversed a two-year trend in record US reserves in 2019 in the US, while operators revised their estimates of total proven reserves, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Friday.
The EIA’s annual report showed that proven oil reserves and leasing condensate remained virtually the same in 2019 as in 2018, with a very slight increase of 0.1 percent. Proven natural gas reserves, on the other hand, fell by 1.9%, according to EIA data by the end of 2019.
In that year, crude oil prices were generally lower than oil prices in 2018, with the US reference price, West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil (WTI), averaging $ 57 a barrel, down $ 7 a barrel from 2018.
“Lower crude oil prices in 2019 have led many operators to revise their total estimates of proven reserves down, even if proven reserves from extensions and discoveries have increased slightly,” the EIA said.
For comparison, higher oil and gas prices in 2018 have raised proven U.S. oil and gas reserves to new all-time highs. Proven oil and gas reserves surpassed the previous record of the previous year, when rising prices and the continued development of shale resources in 2017 helped push US reserves to what was then record volume. In 2018, the US proved that reserves of crude oil increased by 12%.
In 2019, the US proved that oil reserves, at 47.1 billion barrels, remain at the record level set in 2018, the EIA said in its report. Alaska’s producers added 259 million barrels of proven crude oil reserves and condensate leasing in 2019, the largest net increase in all states.
In natural gas reserves, the proven reserves recorded in 2019 the first annual decrease in the United States since 2015, Texas registering the largest decline with decreases in large shale gas areas such as Eagle Ford, Barnett and Bossier.
However, total US gas reserves remain at the second highest level ever, the EIA said.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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