Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The meteoric rise in Texas oil output continues ... energy success stories in US history
American Enterprise Institute ^ | May 1, 2013 | Mark J. Perry

Posted on 05/01/2013 10:23:29 AM PDT by thackney

Full Title:

The meteoric rise in Texas oil output continues and is one of the most remarkable energy success stories in US history

The Energy Information Administration released new US crude oil production data today for the month of February by state, and one of the highlights of the monthly update is that oil output in America’s No. 1 oil-producing state – Texas – continues its phenomenal, meteoric rise. Here are some details of oil output in “Saudi Texas”:

1. Texas produced an average of 2.295 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in February, which is the highest average daily output in the state in any month since April 1986, just two months short of 27 years ago (see chart above).

2. Amazingly, oil production in the Lone Star State has more than doubled in less than three years, from 1.142 million bpd in July 2010 to 2.295 million bpd in February 2013, which has to be one of the most significant increases in oil output ever recorded in the history of the US over such a short period of time. A million bpd increase in oil output in less than three years in one state is remarkable, and would have never been possible without the revolutionary drilling techniques that just recently started accessing vast oceans of Texas shale oil.

3. In just the last 16 months since October 2011, when the state produced 1.598 million bpd, Texas oil output has increased by almost 700,000 bpd to 2.295 million bpd in February, which is the equivalent of adding an entire new oil field the size of the North Dakota Bakken formation to the US oil supply (based on February production in the Bakken of 715,000 bpd).

4. The exponential increase in Texas oil output over roughly the last three years has completely reversed the previous 23-year decline in the state’s oil production that took place from 1986 to 2009 (see chart).

5. In mid-2009, Texas was producing less than 20% of America’s domestic crude oil. The recent gusher of unconventional oil being produced in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin areas of Texas, thanks to breakthrough drilling technologies, has recently pushed the Lone Star State’s share of domestic crude oil above 30% in each of the last 11 months, and up to 32% of America’s crude in each of the last three months (December, January, and February).

6. Texas oil output in February, at an average of 2.295 million bpd, was 25.3% greater than the combined 1.83 million bpd of US oil imports that month from all of the Persian Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar). In fact, Texas oil output has exceeded Persian Gulf imports in each of the last seven months starting last August, something that has never happened before in the history of monthly EIA data for Persian Gulf imports going back to January 1993.

7. Oil output has increased so significantly in Texas in recent years that if it was considered as a separate oil-producing country, Texas would have been the 13th largest oil-producing nation in the world for crude oil output in December (most recent month available for international oil production data). At the current rate of increase in crude oil output in Texas, the state is on track to possibly produce almost 3 million bpd by the end of this year, which could move the state all the way up to No. 8 in the world for oil output by December (depending on output changes in the other countries this year).

8. The exponential increase in Texas oil production is bringing jobs and economic prosperity to the state. For example, over the last 12 months through March, payrolls in the state of Texas increased by 329,500 jobs, which was a 3.1% annual increase in the state’s employment level, more than twice the national increase in payroll employment of only 1.40% over that period. Every business day over the last year, almost 1,500 new jobs were created in the Lone Star State, and many of those jobs were directly or indirectly related to the state’s booming oil and gas industry. Texas created 17% of US payroll jobs over the last year, even though the state represents only 8.2% of the US population.

MP: The exponential increase in Texas oil production over the last several years is nothing short of phenomenal, and is a direct result of “petropreneurs” who developed game-changing drilling technologies in America that have now revolutionized the nation’s production of shale oil. For Texas oil output to double in less than three years and completely reverse a multi-decade decline, and increase so dramatically that it’s the equivalent of adding a new Bakken oil field to America’s oil output, has to be one of the most remarkable energy success stories in US history.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: energy; oil; shale

1 posted on 05/01/2013 10:23:29 AM PDT by thackney
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: thackney

The figures here are mildly interesting but are really just camouflage for a mean spirited, racist, Republican attack on a black man in the White House!


2 posted on 05/01/2013 10:36:25 AM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 17th Miss Regt

This probably won’t be well received either:

The U.S. Has Much, Much More Gas and Oil Than We Thought
http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/the-u-s-has-much-much-more-gas-and-oil-than-we-thought-20130430
April 30, 2013

The United States has double the amount of oil and three times the amount of natural gas than previously thought, stored deep under the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, according to new data the Obama administration released Tuesday.

In announcing the new data in a conference call, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell also said the administration will release within weeks draft rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing, technology that has come under scrutiny for its environmental impact but that is essential to developing all of this energy.

“These world-class formations contain even more energy-resource potential than previously understood, which is important information as we continue to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign sources of oil,” Jewell said in a statement.

The formations, called Bakken and Three Forks, span much of western North Dakota, the northern tip of South Dakota and the northeastern tip of Montana. The last time the United States Geological Survey assessed this area for its oil and gas reserves was in 2008. But that assessment did not include the Three Forks formation, which explains the substantial increase in the estimates. USGS estimates that these two formations together hold 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered—but technically recoverable—oil and 6.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

...

The energy boom’s impact on North Dakota’s economy is undeniable. The state has the lowest unemployment in the country, at 3.3 percent.


3 posted on 05/01/2013 10:40:07 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: thackney

And those workers are buying more and better cars, trucks, more and better everything so merchants’ profit, locally and nationally from the boom. Drilling supplies, cement, asphalt for roads, lumber, it goes on and on.


4 posted on 05/01/2013 11:00:33 AM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: thackney

I live in CA. The Monterey Shale located along the western edge of the Central Valley is FOUR TIMES THE SIZE OF THE MIGHTY BAKKEN. The State is broke. Will libs in places like San Francisco allow fracking? Even though we’re broke and rapidly turning into a third world country? No!!! Couldn’t have that. We’re all gonna make a living serving crab salad to tourists from Texas. That seems to be the plan.


5 posted on 05/01/2013 11:09:20 AM PDT by Gluteus Maximus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: 17th Miss Regt

Lessee, the answer to Sarah Palins statement ‘Drill baby Drill”, by the democrats was that we could not possibly change the oil supply for 20 years by drilling....


6 posted on 05/01/2013 11:11:55 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: thackney

TEXAS will continue to grow, our Nation will continue to grow... and that metrosexual in Washington can’t do a damn thing to stop it.

Fundamentally transform America? No thank you. American business and American people will do it ourselves.


7 posted on 05/01/2013 11:12:08 AM PDT by Made In The USA (I'm not yelling, just... just talking enthusiastically..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: thackney
In announcing the new data in a conference call, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell also said the administration will release within weeks draft rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing

Uh oh, those danged Americans are booming again because of the lack of legal restrictions on fracking

Gotta SHUT THOSE JOBS DOWN!

Lets face it, the Feral Government IS the enemy of America.

8 posted on 05/01/2013 11:14:31 AM PDT by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: thackney
The energy boom’s impact on North Dakota’s economy is undeniable. The state has the lowest unemployment in the country, at 3.3 percent.

I was born and raised in North Dakota. It is a great place to live, if you can stand the cold. I could not, so I left, and soon, when I retire, I am moving to that south sea island beach.

9 posted on 05/01/2013 11:27:34 AM PDT by Mark17 (My body is in California, but my heart is in the Philippines)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Gluteus Maximus

Although there certainly all political roadblocks, the Monterey Shale has technical difficulties as well.

http://www.ohio.com/blogs/drilling/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290/california-s-monterey-shale-is-getting-mixed-reviews-1.388535

“Based on our drilling results, our view is that the oil has migrated out of the formation and is now found in pockets outside of the Monterey shale,” said Kurt Glaubitz, a spokesman for San Ramo

None of the companies that have tried it so far have had significant success, and it doesn’t appear to be widespread,”Marshall said by e-mail. “It may take an advancement in technology or methodology to unlock the oil production potential of the formation.”

The Monterey shale is more expensive to explore than the Bakken shale that’s yielded an oil boom in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford shale in Texas, said Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of energy and sustainability at the University of California, Davis.

“The Eagle Ford is like a pound cake,” Jaffe said in a telephone interview. “The Monterey shale is like a nine-layer chocolate cake and to get all the layers straightened up and put in all the frosting every place we wanted — that’s going to be more complicated and it takes more skill.”

- - - - - - -

http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2012/11nov/monterey1112.cfm

California petroleum geologists know the Monterey Shale as a prolific source rock for many of the state’s large oil fields. Clarke said interest in tapping the Monterey comes in cycles, the latest peak occurring about 20 years ago.

When the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing began to unlock shale production in other parts of the country, the Monterey Shale started getting a closer look.

Unlike some shales, the Monterey Shale doesn’t present a highly consistent picture. Instead, “it changes dramatically wherever it is in California,” Clarke said.

He said it’s important to identify where the Monterey is dolomitic or siliceous and brittle – and therefore theoretically more responsive to stimulative hydrofracturing – and where it is more calcereous and ductile.

In the Southern California/L.A. Basin area, “there is a lot of stuff unknown,” he said. “The other thing is that there has been 2-D seismic in the L.A. Basin but no 3-D seismic, except for what we’ve done in the Long Beach area.”

Several companies are looking at the Monterey Shale as a resource play, taking various approaches to the problem, but no one has been able to characterize the Monterey’s geology and develop a fully successful approach to tapping its potential.


10 posted on 05/01/2013 11:28:38 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: thackney

Ted Turner obviously had gotten wind of this years ago when he started acquiring land in those states


11 posted on 05/01/2013 11:41:11 AM PDT by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: thackney

All of our domestic production now narrowly exceeds our exports from outside of North America. That’s nice but we still have ~2.7MM bpd coming in from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Russia, Kuwait, Nigeria and Angola. There’s another ~1.2MM bpd coming from South America which is only moderately more stable than the previously mentioned countries.

Looking at this from an oil security point of view, I’d love to see the US work towards a policy of having our supply satisfied from just within the western hemisphere. Later we can work towards an exclusively North American policy.


12 posted on 05/01/2013 11:52:13 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: American in Israel
They did have a point. The administration has been doing everything possible to prevent drilling and the oil reserves have increased hugely. See? Drilling was not the answer to our oil supply problems! (ducking)
13 posted on 05/01/2013 12:09:21 PM PDT by 17th Miss Regt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: thackney

TEXPEC, soon to be the 8th largest oil producing country in the world.


14 posted on 05/02/2013 6:45:00 PM PDT by American Constitutionalist
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson