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Increasing production of crude oil in the Permian Basin in western Texas, and parts of New Mexico, has outpaced pipeline infrastructure to move the crude to refineries, causing prices for crude in the Permian Basin (at Midland, Texas) to fall below similar crudes priced at Cushing, Oklahoma. While the price difference between Midland and Cushing has been increasing for almost a year, recent refinery outages in the region caused it to widen substantially. Several infrastructure projects that will allow more crude to flow from the Permian to the U.S. Gulf Coast are expected to come online soon, which should cause...

We're just praying there's no more rain, that our house is going to stay the same. But whatever happens, God has his plan," said Jennica Granger. OILFIELD ROADS FLOODED OUT. People living in Carlsbad caught a break from the rain Monday, but it's little consolation to people who've been hit in the pocketbook by all the flooding. The Pecos River is swollen, bridges are washed over and roads are closed. The San Jose Bridge was overrun by water early Monday morning, and the sidewalk near the bridge was washed out. The water level has gone down along the Pecos River,...

Why the Permian shale boom transformed US energy markets By Alex Chamberlin - Disclosure  • Sep 18, 2014 10:31 am EDT U.S. shale boom transformed U.S. energy marketsAccording to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (or EIA), the top seven unconventional oil plays accounted for 95% of domestic oil production growth. They also accounted for all domestic natural gas production growth during 2011–2013.Permian Basin crude oilAccording to the EIA, the Permian Basin in west Texas and eastern New Mexico is the largest crude oil-producing region in the U.S.Enlarge GraphCrude oil production from the Permian Basin increased from 850,000 barrels per day...

The impact of higher oil and gas activity, fueled by a run-up in crude prices, continued to flow into the general economies of Midland and Odessa in July. Karr Ingham, the Amarillo economist who prepares the Midland-Odessa Regional Economic Index for Midland Development Corp. and Security Bank, said the July index is 6.2 percent higher than the previous July. This is a higher increase than June, which was 5.8 percent above June 2013 levels. Ingham said the increased momentum comes at a time when the Midland-Odessa economy had been reporting shrinking growth rates. “It’s not like we were really seeing...

Boffins have discovered that "lethally hot" ocean temperatures kept the Earth devoid of life for millions of years after the mass extinction that occurred 250 million years ago. The global wipeout that ended the Permian era, before dinosaurs, wiped out nearly all of the world's species. Mass extinctions like these in Earth's history are usually followed by a "dead zone", a period of tens of thousands of years before new species crop up. But the early Triassic dead zone lasted millions of years, not thousands. Boffins now reckon that the extra-long five million year dead zone was caused by screaming...

The gap between crude oil prices in the major trading centers of Midland, Texas and Cushing, Okla. ballooned to $19 Tuesday morning, the widest point this year and second-highest on record. On Tuesday morning, the price for crude oil hit a low of $77.48 per barrel in Midland. In Cushing, the benchmark pricing point for U.S. crude contracts, the price was $96.48. Worldwide crude prices fell, Bloomberg reported, after Iraqi and Kurdish forces regained control of a key dam in Iraq and slowed the advance of Islamic State militants. Midland prices are further depressed because production growth in West Texas’...

5 Things Pioneer Natural Resources’ Management Wants You to Know By Matt DiLallo | More Articles | Save For Later August 18, 2014 | Comments (0) Pioneer Natural Resources' (NYSE: PXD  ) management team earlier this month spent nearly 75 minutes discussing its second-quarter results with analysts and investors. The company believes it is sitting on more than 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas in the Permian Basin. Here's what management wants investors to know about its plans to create value from that massive resource. No. 1: The water issue is slowly drying upOne reason for Pioneer Natural Resources' large...

Oil Production In Permian Causes Pipeline Bottleneck In TexasCatherine Ngai|Tuesday, August 12, 2014 NEW YORK, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Oil production from the burgeoning Permian Basin of West Texas is outpacing pipelines' ability to transport oil to the Gulf Coast, causing coastal refiners to pay an additional premium to acquire oil.On Monday, that bottleneck caused oil for delivery at Midland, Texas <WTC-WTM> to trade at nearly $20 a barrel less than Gulf Coast benchmark Light Louisiana Sweet <WTC-LLS>, the deepest discount in 17 months. It was little changed on Tuesday.The deep discount is a consequence of the U.S. shale revolution, which...

Why This Oil Baron Thinks U.S. Oil Production Could Double By Adam Galas | More Articles August 17, 2014 | Comments (0) America's oil production is on a roll. After peaking in November of 1970 at 10 million barrels per day (bpd) and declining for nearly 40 years to a low of just 5 million bpd in 2008, today's oil production has soared 67%. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is expecting another 13.6% increase by 2016 to 9.5 million bpd, before production tapers off in 2020. This miracle has been made possible by soaring shale oil production out of Texas...

With crude gushing from the Permian Basin, companies are ramping up efforts to build pipelines and better capitalize on the production surge. Drillers have been producing oil in the Permian for some eight decades. But in recent years, the Texas formation’s central region, which consists of the Delaware and Midland basins, became a hotbed for shale oil. The Permian is now the top oil-producing area in the U.S., accounting for 18% of the nation’s total output in 2013. Based on data from the Energy Information Administration, the Permian recorded production of 1.35 million barrels per day last year. The region...

Pioneer CEO: US oil production could hit 14 million barrels/day Posted on August 6, 2014 at 6:54 pm by Jennifer A. Dlouhy in General Scott Sheffield, chairman and CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, speaks in Midland, Texas. (Tim Fischer\Reporter-Telegram) DENVER — Technological improvements will allow energy companies to scrape more crude out of the ground and drive U.S. oil production higher, even as producers seek new overseas markets for the fossil fuels, executives said Wednesday.Although government forecasters expect U.S. oil production to peak around 9.5 million barrels per day in 2016, Scott Sheffield, CEO of Irving, Texas-based Pioneer Natural Resources...

Much larger than Eagle Ford and once thought to have reached peak production, new technology has brought us full circle back to the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, where the recent shift to horizontal well drilling has rendered this play the unconventional ground zero.

The Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico is the nation's most prolific oil producing area. Six formations within the basin have provided the bulk of Permian's 60% increase in oil output since 2007. Crude oil production in the Permian Basin has increased from a low point of 850,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2007 to 1,350,000 bbl/d in 2013. Largely as a result of this growth, crude oil production from Permian Basin counties has exceeded production from the federal offshore Gulf of Mexico region since March 2013, making the Permian the largest crude oil producing region in the United...

By Matt DiLallo | More Articles June 10, 2014 | Comments (0)   Source: Chesapeake Energy.  Drilling down into the Permian BasinWhile the Permian Basin is one of America's oldest and most prolific oil basins, its best days could lie ahead. According to leading Permian Basin driller Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD  ) , the Spraberry and Wolfcamp Shale formations in the Permian Basin represent the largest oil field in America, and one of the biggest in the world. As the following slide notes, the field holds an estimated 75 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas. Source: Pioneer Natural Resources.  As that...

Fracking Isn’t the Only Drilling Technique Driving Rapid Growth in U.S. Oil Production By Arjun Sreekumar | More Articles | Save For Later June 1, 2014 | Comments (0) As the U.S. energy boom has taken off over the past several years, the term "fracking" has become a household name. But fracking, which involves pumping massive quantities of water, proppant, and other chemicals into a wellbore to unlock trapped hydrocarbons, isn't the only drilling technique responsible for the surge in U.S. oil and gas production.Horizontal drilling, which allows operators to reach hydrocarbon formations that cannot be accessed via vertical drilling,...

New projections show oil production soaring as rigs boost efficiency Posted on May 12, 2014 at 6:48 pm by Simone Sebastian in featured, Production, Shale EmailPrint1263 inShare184 An Enervest rig works in the Barnett Shale. (Enervest) HOUSTON — Oil production will continue to soar in the six major U.S. shale plays, with more barrels pumped per rig, according to federal projections released Monday.Total oil production in the six regions is expected to grow to 4.43 million barrels per day in June, an increase of 75,000 barrels per day compared to May, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The federal...

The Permian Basin, known for its vast conventional resources, has experienced over the past years an activity renaissance targeting unconventional formations. More recently, unconventional activity in this basin has shifted from vertical to horizontal wells yielding more recoverable volumes and higher D&C costs per well. Hence, both tight oil production and spending are expected to grow in this area, possibly surpassing other mature shale plays such as Eagle Ford and Bakken. The accelerated drilling into the Wolfcamp and other horizons in the Permian Basin anticipate this area will produce more tight oil volumes than any other tight play in North...

The Jaw-Dropping Potential in This American Oil Patch Could Change the World By Tyler Crowe |May 24, 2014 | It may not look like much, but this might be the biggest oil field in the world (Source: Devon Energy Media Resources).The pride and joy of Saudi Arabia's oil industry has been the Ghawar oil field, which has been recognized as the largest in the world ever since its discovery in 1948. That is, perhaps, until now. A shale oil formation deep beneath the plains of West Texas has been sitting right under our noses for years, and Pioneer Natural Resources (NYSE: PXD  )...

For the past several years, the Permian Basin remained an area where vertical drilling was still the principle method of extraction, even as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing become ubiquitous in the Eagle Ford Shale, the Bakken, and other shale plays in the United States. However, horizontal drilling is on the rise in the Permian Basin, as well, according to new data by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Horizontal drilling began to increase in the Permian Basin early in 2013, the EIA said. By the end of 2013, oil extraction in the Permian accounted for half of the total increase...

Despite impressive strides made in areas like North Dakota and Ohio, and the previous challenges felt in northern regions of the state, Texas is still far and away the leading producer of domestic oil. Earlier this week, the Energy Information Administration released its drilling productivity report, which showcases anticipated production levels in the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Marcellus, Niobrara and Permian regions. Collectively, these combine for 90 percent of the United States' oil production growth. The Eagle Ford Formation, which runs along most of southern Texas, is leading the way. According to the report, Texas is the nation's top oil...