Stretching across West Texas and southeast New Mexico, the Permian Basin is now the largest oil-producing field in the world, with daily production of more than 4.3 million barrels of oil and 14 billion cubic feet of natural gas.
Half of all drilling rigs working in the U.S. are here.
It’s indisputably great rock. Some experts foresee output rising to peak at 5.5
million barrels a day (MMbbl/d) by 2023, and up to 6.8 MMbbl/d by 2029. “This basin will lead all other U.S. areas in production growth in the short, mid-
and long term,” said Enverus.
Drilling began in 1920 with the W.H. Abrams No. 1 in Mitchell County,
a small well whose significance at the time could not have been under- stood. The well flowed only 20 bbl/d. But wildcatters soon realized there was more to the Texas oil story than the giant East Texas Field, and so, they moved west to drill from Midland to New Mexico.
Today companies are pouring enormous amounts of capital into the vast basin. Since 2015, some $98 billion of mergers and acquisitions have occurred here, not counting Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s buy of Anadar-
ko Petroleum Corp. in 2019. ExxonMobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. are racing to become the first major company to reach 1 MMbbl/d of Permian production.
This writer moved to Midland in 1975 during that era’s boom only to be told there was no house to buy and no apartment to rent. Four decades later, newcomers to Midland and Odessa, and Carlsbad and Hobbs, are hearing the same thing.