Oil Production Jumps in March Even as US Drilling Collapses
The United States keeps pumping oil at a near-record pace in spite of the collapse in prices over the past year and cutbacks in drilling.
Crude production rose 1.3% in March to the highest level since 1973, a Federal Reserve index showed April 15.
Output was up 13.7% from a year ago, according to the central bank's report on industrial production. For all of 2014, the gauge of oil extraction climbed 15.4%.
The pickup in output last month occurred even as producers put fewer wells in the ground. Drilling plunged 17.7% in March from a month earlier and was down at an almost 70% annualized pace in the first quarter, the biggest decline in almost six years, according to the Fed's seasonally adjusted figures.
As Morgan Stanley economist Ted Wieseman noted in an e-mail to clients April 15, the collapse in drilling eventually will reduce oil production as existing wells become depleted or less profitable and are capped.
So far, though, there's no sign of that happening as American producers continue to add supply to a world market already awash in oil.
