Last week Saudi Aramco -- the national oil company of Saudi Arabia and the world's largest oil company -- lifted a veil of secrecy around the company's operations. For the first time in decades, operational details for Saudi Aramco were revealed in a bond offering. (A PDF link of the prospectus is here).
We don't know for certain the reasons, but this report from Saudi Aramco says that the mighty Ghawar oil field in that country produced 3.8 million BPD in 2018. The Energy Information Administration reports that the Permian Basin is now producing 4.2 million BPD. For all of 2018 the Permian Basin averaged 3.4 million BPD, but production during the year increased by 1.1 million BPD. Production hit the 3.8 million BPD mark in October and has risen in every month since then.
So, we can reasonably conclude that right now -- regardless of the reason -- the Permian Basin has overtaken Ghawar as the world's top oil-producer. That may not last if Saudi is constraining production in Ghawar, or if Permian production slows down anytime soon. But it marks the first time in decades that Ghawar wasn't the top-producing oil field in the world.
It's nice to have the world's most productive oil field, for a change, and all because private enterprise figured out a way to extract oil and natural gas in innovative ways.
This is good news, but it's going to piss off Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Maybe that fantastic news for us rational folks.
ReplyDeleteThis article is from 2 years ago and predicted how big this was gonna be
ReplyDeletehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/04/11/permania-100-years-in-the-permian-oil-fields-of-new-mexico-and-texas/#14ae6f2c6970
Colorados democrat politicians are doing their level best to reverse this.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nice Good News story, but the truth of the matter is that the Arabs choke back their production to preserve well and field life. In other words, they are idling along on cruise control while we have just eeked past them on a Top Fuel mix, near red line. It won't last, but it's nice to how innovation and technology is still mostly home grown.
ReplyDeleteThe US has about 37 Gbbl in oil reserves in the ground. Saudi Arabia has 267 Gbbl, Kuwait, Irag, Iran all well over 100, each. Venezuela has over 300 Gbbl. You see the problem? Best thing to do, load up the Atlantic Fleet with KFC, Coca Cola, and toilet paper and go to Venezuela; the country will be ours in 3 days with no shots fired, and Maduro and this thugs will be field-dressed and ready for processing.
Commies in New Mexico will do everything they can to keep that oil in the ground, too.
ReplyDelete