HOUSTON, April 9 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Tuesday revised up crude oil prices for 2019.
In its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook, released on Tuesday, the EIA forecast that Brent crude oil spot prices would average 65 U.S. dollars per barrel in 2019 and 62 dollars per barrel in 2020, compared with an average of 71 dollars per barrel in 2018.
In its previous outlook, the EIA forecast that Brent crude oil spot prices would average 63 dollars per barrel in 2019 and 62 dollars per barrel in 2020.
The EIA expected that West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices will average 8 dollars per barrel lower than Brent prices in the first half of 2019 before the discount gradually falls to 4 dollars per barrel in late 2019 and through 2020.
Brent crude oil spot prices averaged 66 dollars per barrel in March, up 2 dollars per barrel from February.
Brent prices for the first quarter of 2019 averaged 63 dollars per barrel, which is 4 dollars per barrel lower than the same period in 2018. Despite lower crude oil prices than last year, Brent prices in March were 9 dollars per barrel higher than in December 2018, marking the largest December-to-March price increase since December 2011 to March 2012.
EIA estimated that U.S. crude oil production averaged 12.1 million barrels per day (b/d) in March, up 0.3 million b/d from the February average. EIA forecast that U.S. crude oil production will average 12.4 million b/d in 2019 and 13.1 million b/d in 2020, with most of the growth coming from the Permian region in Texas and New Mexico.
