Bolstered by another strong month of growth from the Haynesville Shale, domestic natural gas production from seven key onshore plays should climb to over 96.6 Bcf/d from January to February, updated modeling from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows.

Production

The agency said in its latest Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), published Tuesday, that it expects natural gas production from the Haynesville to grow by 145 MMcf/d month/month to 16.585 Bcf/d in February. That’s consistent with last month’s DPR, which also had the Haynesville leading domestic natural gas production growth.

Alongside the Haynesville, the DPR also tracks production trends in the Anadarko, Appalachia and Permian basins, as well as the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Niobrara shales. Combined natural gas output from the seven plays will rise 466 MMcf/d month/month to 96.656 Bcf/d in February, according to the latest DPR.

Also expected to post notable natural gas output growth from January to February are Appalachia (up 93 MMcf/d to 35.372 Bcf/d) and the Permian (up 109 MMcf/d to 21.724 Bcf/d), DPR data show. EIA said it expects smaller gains from the Anadarko (up 26 MMcf/d), Bakken (up 33 MMcf/d), Eagle Ford (up 46 MMcf/d) and Niobrara (up 14 MMcf/d).

Oil production from the seven regions, meanwhile, is on track to reach 9,375,000 b/d in February, a sequential increase of 76,000 b/d, the DPR data show. 

The Permian and Bakken will post the largest output gains month/month at 30,000 b/d and 20,000 b/d, respectively. The Anadarko (up 11,000 b/d), Appalachia (up 3,000 b/d), Eagle Ford (up 4,000 b/d) and Niobrara (up 8,000 b/d) regions are also expected to grow oil production from January to February.

Total drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells across the seven regions grew to 4,577 in December, up 40 from month-earlier levels, according to the latest DPR. The Niobrara posted the largest DUC increase for the period, adding 29 to its backlog, while the Haynesville added 12 DUC wells from November to December.

The agency tallied smaller DUC gains in the Anadarko (up three), Appalachia (up one), Bakken (up three) and Permian (up one) regions. The Eagle Ford was the only region to shrink its DUC backlog, depleting it by nine wells from November to December to end with 508, EIA 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.