HOUSTON, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- U.S. proved natural gas reserves increased 5 percent in 2016 and the proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate remained at 35.2 billion barrels in 2016, a governmental agency said Tuesday.
The United States had 341.1 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas proved reserves as of Dec. 31, 2016, a 5-percent increase compared with the 17-percent decline in 2015, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
The share of the proved reserves of the natural gas from shale increased from 54 percent in 2015 to 62 percent in 2016.
U.S. proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate remained at 35.2 billion barrels at the year end of 2016, a slight net decline of 17 million barrels from 2015.
Texas had the largest net increase in proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate among all states in 2016, adding 941 million barrels of proved crude oil and lease condensate reserves, mostly from development in the Permian Basin, which ranked top among all U.S. shale oil basins.
Shale oil production in southern U.S. states hit a record of 815 million barrels in 2017, which far exceeded its previous peak of 790 million barrels set in 1973.
In 2016, U.S. production of crude oil and lease condensate decreased by 6 percent from 2015, and its production of total natural gas dropped by 1 percent.
Proved reserves are those volumes of oil and natural gas that geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions.
Last month, the EIA said in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook that U.S. crude production will soar to a record high this year before rising even more in 2019.
The growth of North American shale production, which caused an estimated 5-percent increase in U.S. crude output in 2017, has rocked the oil industry in the past few years, spurring OPEC and other traditional producers to cut output to trim global inventories.
