Why The Permian Basin May Become The World’s Most Productive Oil Field

Forbes.com
December 27, 2018

Many people will tell you that the production rate of Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar oil field, which has yielded 5 million barrels of petroleum per day for decades, will never be surpassed. In fact, no other oil field has ever come close to topping the production rate of Ghawar, and up until recently I would have agreed its production would never be topped.

But I am becoming more convinced that the Permian Basin could eventually give Ghawar a run for its money.

That argument would have been laughable a decade ago, but there are three pieces of data that suggest the argument isn’t as preposterous as I once believed it was.

A Rapidly Rising Production Rate

First, there is the actual production rate in the Permian. Consider for a moment that the Permian Basin has been producing oil since the 1920s, and reached the two million BPD mark in the 1970s. Production slowly declined, until dipping back under one million BPD around the turn of the 21st century.

Permian Basin oil production slowly crept back up to one million BPD in 2010, and then hydraulic fracturing sent production soaring. By the end of 2018, production had reached 3.8 million BPD, vaulting the Permian into second place among the world’s leading oil fields. In under a decade — and after already producing oil for a hundred years — Permian Basin production has increased by 3 million BPD.

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