Permian Takes the Crown as World's Top Oil Field

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1 MIN READ - The Cautious Optimism Correspondent for Economic Affairs and Other Egghead Stuff has posted several updates on the U.S. shale oil boom over the last two years. Now American shale oil racks up another milestone: the West Texas Permian Basin shale formation has eclipsed Saudi Arabia's monster Ghawar oilfield as top producing asset on the planet.

Part of this is due to shrinking production at Ghawar which may itself be due to OPEC's coordinated output cuts, but even then Permian production is still growing and will increase even further as new pipeline capacity to Gulf Coast refineries and shipping terminals comes online.

A few short years ago few would have predicted this abandoned energy region of West Texas would become the largest producing oilfield in the world by 2019. If only a decade ago we'd gotten a nickel for every time we heard "shale oil will never be economically feasible," or six years ago every time former President Barack Obama quarreled that "we can't drill our way out of this problem."

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