US Crude Output Heads for a Record Year as the EIA Lifts Its 2027 Forecast
The agency sees production averaging 13.8 million barrels a day in 2026 and 14.3 million in 2027, powered by the Permian and new deepwater Gulf of Mexico projects.
US crude oil production is on course for an annual record in 2026, and the government's energy statisticians now expect even more next year. The Energy Information Administration said this week that output should average 13.8 million barrels a day in 2026, edging past last year's record of 13.7 million, and raised its 2027 forecast to 14.3 million barrels a day.
The 2027 figure has been revised upwards in successive outlooks. It stood at 14.0 million barrels a day in July and 14.2 million in August.
Context: where the extra barrels come from
Two regions account for most of the growth.
The Permian Basin of west Texas and south-east New Mexico remains the engine of US shale. The EIA expects it to average about 6.8 million barrels a day this year, roughly 3% more than in 2025. Operators there are drilling ever-longer horizontal wells, some now stretching beyond 15,000 feet, to extract more oil from each drilling site.
The second source is the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, where output rose by about 200,000 barrels a day, or 10%, year on year in the first half. Four recently started projects, Shenandoah, Ballymore, Whale and Salamanca, together contributed around 191,000 barrels a day of that increase.
Higher prices have helped the economics. WTI averaged about $84 a barrel through August and broke above $100 this week. US natural gas output is also at record levels, since much of it is produced alongside oil in the same basins.
Why it matters
With exports from the Gulf constrained, each additional American barrel carries more weight in the global balance than usual. US supply cannot replace the volumes affected by disruption around the Strait of Hormuz, but steady growth from a large producer outside the region helps limit the damage and gives importers in Europe and Asia an alternative source of crude.
The pace of growth is also revealing. An increase of about 100,000 barrels a day in 2026 is modest given how far prices have climbed. Shale companies have spent recent years prioritising dividends and share buybacks over rapid expansion, and they tend to plan around longer-term prices rather than short-lived spikes. The EIA's own projection for Brent, which falls to about $74 a barrel in 2027 after averaging $91 this year, supports that cautious approach.
In other words, the record reflects years of efficiency gains in existing fields more than a rush to exploit this summer's price surge.
- 2026: 13.8 million barrels a day forecast, above the 2025 record of 13.7 million.
- 2027: raised to 14.3 million barrels a day, from 14.2 million in August and 14.0 million in July.
- Permian: about 6.8 million barrels a day this year, up roughly 3%.
- Gulf of Mexico: up about 200,000 barrels a day in the first half, led by four new projects.
- Price assumptions: Brent averaging $91 in 2026 and around $74 in 2027.
Outlook
The EIA's next Short-Term Energy Outlook is due on 6 October, and it will be the first to reflect crude's move back above $100. The key question for next year's numbers is whether sustained high prices persuade producers to add rigs, or whether the wide gap between spot prices and longer-dated contracts keeps drilling plans measured.
For now, the forecast points to American output continuing to grind higher: not fast enough to offset the loss of Gulf barrels, but enough to make the United States an even larger force in the global crude market in 2027.
Image: Quintin Soloviev via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0