Oil production from major US shale plays will decline by almost 60,000 barrels per day between April and May according to new estimates from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Production is expected to decline in the Bakken, Niobrara and Eagle Ford plays next month. Only the Permian Basin is expected to post a small month-on-month increase in output.

With the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States down by almost 53% in just six months, according to oilfield services company Baker Hughes, the shale boom appears to be approaching a turning point.

The crude market remains substantially oversupplied as a result of past production, but the degree of excess supply should narrow in the coming months, analysts for the news agency Reuters say.

In Marcellus, the US market's biggest gas field encompassing reserves in the states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, production was expected to rise only minimally in May