Texas crude oil and natural gas production climbed in January, based on preliminary figures; oil well completions continued their climb in February, but gas well completions were down; and the pace of drilling permitting slackened from a year ago, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC).

Texas preliminary January crude oil production averaged 1.93 million b/d, up from the 1.43 million b/d average of January 2013. The preliminary production figure for January is 59.77 million bbl, up from 44.24 million bbl reported during January 2013.

Oil and gas wells produced 589.74 Bcf of natural gas based upon preliminary figures for January, up from the January 2013 preliminary total of 532.73 Bcf. Preliminary January total gas production averaged 19.02 Bcf/d.

Estimated final production for January is 69.93 million bbl of crude oil and 566.49 Bcf of gas well gas. The RRC derived final production numbers by multiplying the preliminary January production total of 59.77 million bbl of crude oil and 467.98 Bcf of gas well gas by an adjustment factor of 1.1700 for crude oil and 1.2105 for gas well gas. These totals do not include casinghead gas or condensate. January casinghead gas production was 121.76 Bcf, up from 118.39 Bcf a year ago.

Top oil-producing counties in January were Karnes, La Salle, Gonzales, McMullen, Andrews, DeWitt, Dimmit, Ector, Upton and Martin. Top gas-producing counties were Tarrant, Webb, Johnson, Panola, Wise, Denton DeWitt, Dimmit, Wheeler and Karnes.

January production came from 161,533 oil wells and 92,269 gas wells. In the last 12 months, total Texas reported production was 724 million bbl of oil and 7.8 Tcf of natural gas.

The RRC issued 1,682 original drilling permits in February compared to 1,744 in February 2013. The latest total included 1,547 permits to drill new oil and gas wells, 32 to re-enter existing wellbores and 103 for recompletions. Permits issued in February included 472 oil, 72 gas, 1,067 oil and gas, 50 injection, two service and 19 other permits.

In February operators reported 2,768 oil, 232 gas, 131 injection and 11 other completions compared to 1,006 oil, 351 gas, 47 injection and one other completion in February 2013. Total well completions for 2014 year to date are 6,749, up from 2,925 recorded during the same period in 2013.

The Texas average rig count as of March 21 was 854, representing about 49% of all active land rigs in the United States.