One of the World’s Biggest Sources of Oil Is Right Here in America

SANTA FE, N.M.—Oil production in New Mexico keeps on booming, and it could continue to do so for some time.

“I think the forecast is great,” said Parker Hallam, president and CEO of Crude Energy in Dallas. “I’m excited.”

The Permian Basin, located in eastern New Mexico and West Texas, recently has become one of the world’s biggest sources for crude oil.

The Bakken formation in North Dakota, the Eagle Ford “play” in South Texas and the Permian Basin are each producing more than 1 million barrels of oil per day, with the Permian leading the pack at 1.6 million barrels a day.

Domestic production has grown so large that last month, the International Energy Agency announced the United States surpassed Russia and even Saudi Arabia in oil production.

In New Mexico, field production has doubled in the past three years and is on the verge of surpassing 10 million barrels a month, according to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“I think the next 10 years, we can expect to see three to 3-and-a-half million [barrels a day from the Permian Basin],” Hallam said. “We could see even more than that.”

The reason?

Horizontal drilling, using hydraulic fracturing—“fracking.”

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