A new report released by the Texas Oil and Gas Association shows how far the Texas energy industry has come to help the U.S. to achieve the ‘World Energy Dominance,’ called for by President Trump, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Oil and natural gas activity in the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford have achieved eye-popping numbers, with both fields continuing to turn out massive amounts of fuels, despite depressed global oil prices.
TXOGA President Todd Staples says the progress that the Texas energy industry has made in the past decade since the introduction of hydraulic fracking is truly exceptional.
“The Permian’s production of 2.4 million barrels per day in 2016 is greater than the average crude oil production of nine of the fourteen OPEC countries,” Staples said.
The United States is expected to produce more oil in 2018 than at any time since 1970.
Staples says the natural gas production from the Eagle Ford is also setting records.
“In the Eagle Ford alone, a single day of production meets the natural gas needs of over 230,000 U.S. homes for a month.”
Staples says he doubts that the U.S. will ever import no oil, due to fuel mixtures and refinery demands, but he says for the U.S. to become the dominant energy producer in the world, more dominant than Saudi Arabia or Russia, is well within reach, and with new cooperation with Mexico made possible by that nation’s opening of its oil reserves to foreign investment, that dominance will only be stronger.
OPEC has tried many tactics, from increasing production to drive down prices to cutting production, in an attempt to kill U.S. shale oil growth, and Russia has provided money to environmentalist anti-fracking groups in an attempt to use legislation to kill fracking, which is a huge competitor to Russian oil production. But Staples says the money tells a different story. He says it is clear that U.S. production will only continue to grow.
“Total capital expenditures for the Permian are expected to increase by 400%, from $8 billion in 2016, to over $40 billion in 2021,” he said.
And Staples says that means continued strong investment in the Texas fracking fields, an indication that investors do not believe any tactic, either economy or political, will shake the growth of Texas shale.
“Out nation’s ability to achieve and sustain energy dominance rests here in the heart of Texas,” Staples said.