U.S. Liquid Fuels
- Brent crude oil spot prices averaged $59 per barrel (b) in January, up $2/b from December 2018 but $10/b lower than the average in January of last year. EIA forecasts Brent spot prices will average $61/b in 2019 and $62/b in 2020, compared with an average of $71/b in 2018. EIA expects that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average $8/b lower than Brent prices in the first quarter of 2019 before the discount gradually falls to $4/b in the fourth quarter of 2019 and through 2020.
- EIA estimates that U.S. crude oil production averaged 12.0 million barrels per day (b/d) in January, up 90,000 b/d from December. EIA forecasts U.S. crude oil production to average 12.4 million b/d in 2019 and 13.2 million b/d in 2020, with most of the growth coming from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico.
- U.S. crude oil and petroleum product net imports are estimated to have fallen from an average of 3.8 million b/d in 2017 to an average of 2.4 million b/d in 2018. EIA forecasts that net imports will continue to fall to an average of 0.9 million b/d in 2019 and to an average net export level of 0.3 million b/d in 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, EIA forecasts the United States will be a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products by about 1.1 million b/d.
