US Leads World Oil Production for Sixth Consecutive Year

With a record-breaking average output of 12.9 million barrels per day (bpd), the United States has led the world in crude oil production for the sixth consecutive year, according to a report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Monday.

In December, the United States achieved a record-breaking monthly worldwide output of 13.3 million barrels per day. 

“The United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time, according to our International Energy Statistics, for the past six years in a row,” the EIA added.

Together, the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia produced 32.8 million barrels of oil per day last year, or about 40% of the world’s total.

Since 1971, the three nations have produced more oil than any other, even considering the output that took place in the Russian Federation of the Soviet Union until the USSR was dissolved in 1991.

2009 saw a rise in U.S. output as companies began utilizing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing methods more often. Since 2009, there have only been two deviations from the rising trend: in 2020 and 2021, prices dropped as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative economic effects and decreased demand for oil.

In 2023, the total output of the next three leading producing nations, China, Iraq, and Canada, was 13.1 million b/d, marginally more than that of the United States alone.

The Saudi government gave Aramco an order in January to stop expanding its oil output and to aim for a maximum sustained production capacity of 12 million barrels per day (bpd), which is one million barrels per day less than the objective set for 2020.

Monday saw a decline in global benchmark Brent, falling below $82 a barrel as worries about slowing Chinese demand combined with ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and Russia.