Did You Know This? The US Has Surpassed Saudi Arabia in Oil Production

I didn't, and you'd think this would be a big f'n deal.

In spite of the Obama Administration's hostility to carbon-rich energy, private actors with private capital deployed on private (and state) land have launched a game-changing revolution in domestic oil and natural gas production.

A scarcely reported milestone conveys the magnitude of this turnaround in the global energy landscape.

The U.S. passed Saudi Arabia as the world's largest petroleum producer in November 2012, according to recently released data of the federal Energy Information Administration.

Over the last five years, domestic oil output has risen 40% and continually outpaces projections. Last year, domestic output increased by 800,000 barrels per day. This is the largest increase in annual production since the first oil well was drilled in 1859 in Pennsylvania.

Despite Obama shutting down production in the Gulf. Despite the EPA. Despite NY fiddle-farting around with permits for fracking.

On private lands, open to production, we are now pumping more oil out of the ground than the Saudis.

We still import, but one of the funny other unknown things is we import more from Canada than Saudi Arabia and have for years. While Obama and his EPA stall Keystone, the Eagle Ford field in south Texas has become the most productive oil and gas field in the world. In six years it grew from nothing to 375,000 barrels a day. $60 billion dollar a year impact to the Texas economy. 116,000 jobs (more than double the 48,000 in 2011).

And it's not just Texas. It's everywhere. In. The. United. States. of Holy-crap we got oil America.

posted by Dave In Texas at 08:40 PM

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