The Amazing US Oil Industry Keeps Setting New Records

A Permian Basin frac spread operated by Liberty Frac.

In case you missed it, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday that domestic oil and gas producers achieved new record high oil production during the week ended August 4. Producers pumped out an amazing 13.4 million barrels per day (bpd) for the week, an increase of 800,000 bpd from the same week a year ago.

For context, this weekly production record is more than 3 times the 3.794 million bpd the U.S. produced in September 2008, just 16 years ago, and more than double the volume produced in September 2012. The former 62-year nadir in U.S. production came the month before the first successful well was drilled into the Eagle Ford Shale, kicking off the shale revolution in oil production that has driven the rise of the domestic industry ever since.

The Eagle Ford was in full boom, along with the Bakken in North Dakota, by September 2012, and the mammoth Permian Basin was in the early stages of its own drilling boom at the same time. Since then, the industry has continued to achieve record after record in the face of a seemingly endless parade of predictions by various experts that it has peaked and would embark on a decline.

Yet, here it is, setting yet another new production record even as both Baker Hughes and Enverus report the domestic count of active drilling rigs has declined by 15% over the past 12 months. That’s a continuation of a steady drop in drilling activity since 2017, during which the number of active U.S. rigs has declined by 70%.

I’ve often been criticized for taking a skeptical stance related to predictions of “peak oil,” whether they be on the supply side or the demand side of the equation. Those criticisms generally come from the same people making all those consistently wrong predictions.

July marked my 45th year of either being in the U.S. oil and gas industry or writing about it. The longer I’m around this vibrant, nimble, and innovative business, the more it surprises and often amazes me.

More than that, though, the global economy remains an oil-based economy despite all the hype about the energy transition and trillions of economically ruinous, debt-funded dollars spent on subsidies for inadequate alternatives. Global demand for crude oil reached yet another all-time high in 2023, is on a pace to repeat that feat in 2024, and seems certain to continue rising for years to come, regardless of how many times Fatih Birol and his IEA bureaucrats dummy up their peak oil models.

To everyone in the U.S. oil and gas industry: Thank you for everything you do to meet the energy needs of the world’s rising population and fueling the engine of the global economy.

That is all.