US natural gas production which has witnessed continuous growth in past three years will see growth accelerate in 2014 with Northeast and associated gas to drive production increases.Barclays pointed out in a report that recent grwoth trends were supported by gains in drilling efficiency and gas production from oil wells.

It said that gas production in association with oil has proven to be the second largest driver of production grwoth, after the Northeast region, where Marcellus and Utica are under rapid development.

Barclays said its oil team expects US oil production to maintain a healthy pace of growth in 2014, adding 930 kb/d compared with a growth of 1,130 kb/d in 2013. Part of the slowdown, about 40 kb/d, is expected to come from North Dakota, where accelerated efforts to curtail gas flaring in the Bakken should boost natural gas output relative to oil production
US dry gas output is expected to grow 2.3Bcf/day y/y in 2014 and rist to 67.9 Bcf/d on an annual average basis.

In 2013, the Marcellus/Utica plays outperformed Barclays estimates. Northeast production rose 3.8 Bcf/d year-on-year compared with our expectation of a 3.2 Bcf/day growth.
Source: Barclays