The Permian Basin: Everything Is Bigger in Texas

ExxonMobil gets to the heart of why the Permian Basin is so important to every American.

The United States is now the world’s largest producer of energy coming from oil and natural gas…thanks in no small part to bountiful reservoirs inside a sedimentary formation known as the Permian Basin.

The Yates Field, where oil was first discovered in 1926, still operates today, producing more than 7.4 million barrels annually.

According to the most recent Energy Information Agency’s assessment, the Permian Basin holds 722 million barrels of proven reserves, more than twice the number (387 million) registered in the EIA’s 2013 U.S. reserves estimate.

Driving much of the Permian Basin’s new production are the Wolfcamp, Spraberry and Bone Spring formations. Together, they generate nearly half of the Permian Basin’s output.

Oil production from shale or tight rock formations wasn’t part of the equation until the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology used to produce shale gas was customized to extract oil locked inside the Permian Basin.

Last year, production in Texas nearly doubled from 2008 levels, averaging more than 1.3 million barrels per day.