The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Tuesday released its Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) for August EIA forecasting that the average price retail price for a gallon of regular gasoline will average $2.76 a gallon for all of 2018, unchanged from the July forecast. However, EIA expects gasoline prices to average $2.82 per gallon for all of next year, an increase of six cents a gallon since last month’s projection.
EIA is also showing that U.S. crude oil production averaged 10.9 million barrels of crude oil a day in August, up by 120,000 barrels over July production.
For the full year EIA now forecasts U.S. crude oil production will average 10.7 million barrels a day, an increase of 1.3 million barrels compared with average daily production in 2017. Production is now expected to dip to an average of 10.5 million barrels a day in 2019.
Non-OPEC liquids production is forecast to rise by about 2.31 million barrels a day to 60.7 million barrels a day. Total world production is forecast at 99.67 million barrels a day, up from 97.68 million in 2017. Annual global consumption is forecast at 100.1 million barrels a day, up from 98.52 million last year.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices are forecast to rise from an average of $50.79 a barrel in 2017 to $67.03 this year, and climbing to $67.36 in 2019. Prices for Brent crude are forecast to be about $5.80 a barrel higher this year and about $6.30 higher in 2019.
The STEO also notes that natural gas prices are expected to average $3.10 per million BTUs in 2018 and $3.23 in 2019, up month-over-month by 14 cents and 13 cents, respectively.
WTI crude oil for October delivery opened about flat Tuesday at $67.57 a barrel and recently traded up about 2.8% at $69.41. The January 2019 futures contract traded at $68.84.
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