Texas Oil Commissioner talks about possible 4 million barrels of oil per day in 2016 from Texas

In 2011 oil production in Texas and North Dakota dramatically increased.

North Dakota’s oil production has continued to increase in 2012 and is at 558,254 barrels of oil per day in February.

Texas produced 1,427 thousand barrels per day in 2011, 22 percent more than in 2010 and the highest amount of oil production since 1997. This increase is primarily from the Eagle Ford shale formation in south Texas.

Texas field production of crude oil is at 1.67 million barrels of oil per day in January, 2012.

There is a difference in how the EIA is calculating Texas field production versus the Texas railway commission tracking of crude oil production. The railway commission is seeing about 33 million barrels of crude oil for February, which would be about 1.15 million barrels of oil per day. I believe the difference has to do with definitions of oil.

There are projections for Texas oil production to get over 2 million barrels per day (based on the Texas railway commission definitions).

I could paint a scenario for you where we are producing 3 million more barrels per day by 2016, which would almost get us to the point where we could eliminate 60 to 70 percent of our OPEC imports,” said Texas Railroad Commissioner Barry Smitherman. “With that greater control over our own energy security , we could care less about what happens in the Strait of Hormuz” — the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that serves as a seaway for 22 percent of the world’s oil supply.

The Texas commissioner in charge of their oil industry is saying that 4 million barrels per day of oil production in Texas is feasible by 2016.

Times Record News – Oil production in Texas increased 9.5 percent in February compared to February 2011. Crude oil has once again regained its dominance as employment reaches a new high with 33,500 jobs added in the previous 12 months in Texas. Texas producers completed 869 oil wells during February, more than 230 percent more than the 262 oil-well completions reported in February 2011. Higher well counts and higher wellhead prices for crude oil combined to push the value of Texas-produced crude up 25.7 percent in February to more than $3.6 billion.

Alaska produced 563 thousand barrels per day in 2011, 6 percent less than in 2010. Alaska was at 612,000 barrels per day in January, 2012

California produced 538 thousand barrels per day in 2011, 3 percent less than in 2010. California was at 535,000 barrels of oil per day in January, 2012

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that North America will be the fastest growing oil-producing region outside of OPEC over the next five years. IEA expects oil output in North America to increase 11 percent due to production from oil sands in Canada and shale formations in the United States, with oil production in the United States reaching 8.3 million barrels per day by 2016

If Texas delivers the increases that the commissioner is talking about and North Dakota continues its trend and the other oil shale areas increase as well then it is very plausible that the US could become the #1 crude oil producer. It can also mean that there will be a new peak in US oil production which runs counter to the peak oil theme of it peaked in the US and will peak for the world and never get back to those levels.

US biofuels and synthetic fuels will also be increasing.

Canada’s oil is increasing.

Technology for oilsand extraction and horizontal drilling are both improving.

The tight oil is also in China, Australia and other countries. This is being adopted elsewhere. California also has a lot of tight oil. Once Occidental sells to more aggressive companies like Continental then California oil production will go up in spite of the lack of offshore drilling.

World production could stay high and slightly increasing for quite a while. The US no longer being a big importer means that the export land problem will not hit the US. The collapse of some countries production means problems for Ecuador and those other countries who were never critical to the global economy. It will be bad for them. Europe and Japan have to figure something out. But Germany and Japan are screwing themselves with how they are handling the nuclear situation. Europe will have to shift to more gas. Either they get their own for shale which they have in France or they get it from Russia. I am sure Russia has a lot of oil shale and shale gas, which they have not bothered to look for yet.

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