Harvey's Wake Tempers Bullish Outlook for US Oil Output Growth

The EIA on Thursday revised lower its data on U.S. oil production for June, saying it fell nearly 1 percent in the month to about 9.1 million bpd. Analysts called that a bad omen for the rest of the summer.

Harvey forced Exxon Mobil Corp, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Marathon Oil Corp, Statoil ASA and other producers in the Eagle Ford shale region of Texas and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to halt production and the drilling and fracking of shale wells.

More than a quarter of Gulf production went offline due to the storm, according to government data. In the Eagle Ford shale, producers on Friday were still assessing damage, but most saw operations slow or grind to a halt.

"At this point, we're really waiting to see what the cumulative effect will be" from Harvey, said Paul Hesse of the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Exxon lost nearly 100,000 bpd of production, and Shell has so far lost more than 700,000 bpd.

ConocoPhillips, meanwhile, said it does not plan to reopen its headquarters, which abuts a Houston reservoir that nearly breached, until Sept. 11.

"That 10 million (bpd) level is just not going to happen in the next two years at least," said Anas Alhajji, an independent oil analyst and economist. "The impact of Harvey adds to existing woes."

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and David Gregorio)


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