Enough To Meet Energy Needs For Seven Years: USA Announces Discovery Of Its Largest Continuous Oil And Gas Reserve

The United States (US) government announced that it has discovered a massive new reserve of oil and natural gas in Texas and New Mexico that it estimates as “largest continuous oil and gas resource potential ever assessed.”

The newly discovered reserve is estimated to contain enough resources to fuel the US for nearly seven years.

The US Geological Survey assessed that the Bone Spring Formation in Texas and Wolfcamp Shale in New Mexico contain the largest oil and natural gas potential ever found, the Department of the Interior said in a press release on Thursday (6 December).

The assessment has concluded that the formation contained 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 46.3 billion barrels of oil, and 20 billion barrels of natural-gas liquids.

“Christmas came a few weeks early this year,” Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke commented, speaking of the new found reserve.

“American strength flows from American energy, and as it turns out, we have a lot of American energy,” he added.

“Before this assessment came down, I was bullish on oil and gas production in the United States. Now, I know for a fact that American energy dominance is within our grasp as a nation.”

Nearly a third of the US’ total crude-oil production comes from the Permian Basin where the reserve was found, making it the biggest shale-oil-producing region for the country.

Although the USGS has previously assessed conventional oil and gas resources in the Permian Basin province, this is the first assessment of continuous resources in the Wolfcamp shale and Bone Spring Formation in the Delaware Basin portion of the Permian. Oil and gas companies are currently producing oil here using both traditional vertical well technology and horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing.