EIA Forecasts Continued Crude Oil Production Decline Across US Shale In April, 2016 -- March 8, 2016

From EIA: second-biggest US shale output drop is forecast for April, 2016 -- reported by Reuters --

U.S. shale oil production in April is expected to chalk up the second-largest monthly decline on record, and the sixth straight monthly decrease.

Total output is expected to fall by 106,000 barrels per day to 4.87 million bpd.

That would be the second largest monthly drop after a record 121,000 bpd-decline in January 2015, based on data dating back to 2007.

Production from the Bakken Formation in North Dakota is expected to fall 28,000 bpd, the fifth consecutive monthly drop, while output from the Eagle Ford Formation is forecast to drop 58,000 bpd, the ninth consecutive monthly slide.

Production from the Permian Basin in West Texas is expected to fall 4,000 bpd, the first decline since June.

Oil production per rig rose to new records across the shale plays, jumping 6 bpd in the Bakken, 10 bpd in the Eagle Ford and 6 bpd in the Permian.

The biggest regional decline was expected to be in Eagle Ford, down 0.2 bcfd from March to 6.3 bcfd in April, the lowest level of output in the basin since April 2014.

In the Marcellus Formation, the biggest U.S. shale gas field, in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, April output was expected to decline by 0.1 bcfd from March to 17.3 bcfd. That would be the second monthly decline in a row and the biggest decline since July 2013.

Of course, this is all moot if Hillary Clinton wins the election. She says she will "ban" fracking if elected president. She has probably just lost Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, if anyone in those states is paying attention.

Oh, speaking of fracking and risk to the environment, midwestenergynews is reporting:

A multi-year study has found that coal beds, not fracking, are most likely to blame for methane found in water wells in an Ohio county.

Her work in documenting current conditions meshes with comments and recommendations for baseline well testing noted by a panel at the American Association for the Advancement on Science (AAAS) on February 14. That panel asked the question, “Does hydraulic fracturing allow gas to reach drinking water?”

Oil and gas drilling in Carroll County and other parts of Ohio has expanded dramatically since 2008 due to the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Fracking pumps millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into wells in order to crack and prop open petroleum-bearing rock so oil and natural gas can flow out.
Concern about possible contamination led Townsend-Small and her colleagues to sample groundwater for acids, salts and methane over a three-year period. The project was motivated by a combination of scientific inquiry and citizen concerns in the area.

And the results? The results confirmed fracking is not putting any methane into ground water.