HOUSTON, April 21 (UPI) -- Oil production in the Lower 48 U.S. states is increasing year-on-year despite low oil prices and less spending on exploration and production, analysis finds.
Bentek, the forecasting unit of energy news service Platts, said oil production from the Eagle Ford shale basin in Texas increased 28 percent year-on-year, while output from the Bakken shale in North Dakota was up nearly 18 percent from last year.
The low price of oil has forced energy companies to spend less on exploration and production. Jacqueline Puig, an associate editor at Platts, said the economics for shale are improving.
"Prices of both Eagle Ford and Bakken shale oil have been on an upward trajectory since mid-March and reached a year high in early April," she said in statements made in a report emailed to UPI.
Oil prices ended 2014 down more than 50 percent from the June peak. Key production groups like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries expect global demand for oil will increase, which has lead to an increase in oil prices in the second quarter.
The price for West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. oil benchmark, was $56.14 per barrel early Tuesday, up 14 percent since the start of April.
A so-called Beige Book published last week by the Dallas Federal Reserve found the short-term rig count and demand for oil services declined. North Dakota's government, meanwhile, said oil production in February, the last full month for which data are available, was 1.17 million barrels per day, a 1.1 percent decline from January and a 4 percent decline from December.
