Shale patches in the U.S. are pumping out more oil and gas than the government previously thought. A total 184,000 barrels a day of shale oil output were added to the Energy Information Administration’s estimate for February in its monthly Drilling Productivity Report released Monday. The agency also raised its estimate for natural gas production from the Marcellus region by 4.2 percent. While American drillers have idled more than two-thirds of their oil and gas rigs since October 2014, production has been resilient thanks to techniques that allow them to pump more from each well, and a much-anticipated decline in stockpiles is yet to be seen. U.S. crude inventories climbed above 500 million barrels to the highest level since 1930 in the week ended Jan. 29, according to EIA data. The EIA last week said it was revising the models it uses to estimate output in the report. Last […]