Moreover, the report projects a further rise in production of 0.9 percent in 2016 on top of a 5 percent year-over-year increase last year.
“Production from five states —Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and North Dakota — was responsible for most of this growth, offsetting declines in much of the rest of the United States,” the report explained.
Much of the increase is due to technological advances such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process in which water and chemicals are injected into wells at high pressure to release gas trapped by rock formations, analysts say.
Environmentalists have lobbied hard to ban fracturing, which they claim threatens to pollute underground supplies of drinking water. Several states and many local governments have banned the practice.
