US crude output falls 6% in January due to severe cold, EIA says
March 29 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil production dropped in January to 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd), a 6% decline from December's record high, following freezing weather, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Friday.
Crude oil output in top oil state Texas fell in January to 5.4 million bpd, down about 5% from the prior month, the data showed, while production in North Dakota fell nearly 13% to 1.1 million bpd.
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A severe winter storm in January drastically slashed oil production and shut Texas refining capacity and as it dumped snow and rain across a broad swath of the nation.
U.S. crude oil production reached historic highs of 13.3 million bpd in and December. Texas, North Dakota and New Mexico, major oil producing states, all produced record amounts of crude oil in those months, the EIA data showed.
However, the cold weather in January caused North Dakota's oil production to be cut in half to between 600,000 bpd and 650,000 bpd, the state's pipeline authority said at the time. Other major U.S. oil producing regions were also affected.
The weather also hit consumption of motor fuel in January, and gasoline product supplied, a proxy for demand, fell by about 600,000 bpd to 8.2 million bpd, its lowest in two years, according to the EIA's monthly petroleum status report.
Gross natural gas production in the U.S. Lower 48 states fell about 3.6% to a record 114.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in January, up from the previous record of 118.4 bcfd in December, the EIA said.
Monthly output in January fell 4.6% in Texas to 33.5 bcfd, down from a record 35.1 in December, while monthly output in Pennsylvania fell by 1.5% in Pennsylvania to 21.3 bcfd.
(Reporting by Laura Sanicola; Editing by Paul Simao and Marguerita Choy)