Historic energy milestone: US oil output surges to new record highs

The US Permian Basin has massive oil and gas reserves [credit: theamericanenergynews.com]

No sign of demand for oil fading any time soon, despite all the climate propaganda from wishful thinkers. Even web searches for ‘peak oil’ have declined as US production has soared. Everyone knows, or ought to, that turning the oil tap off would collapse any industrial economy in days.
H/T The GWPF

US crude oil output surges to new all-time record highs in January. It’s a great day for the US energy industry, a great day for the frackers, and a great day for American-style capitalism, says Mark J. Perry of AEIdeas.

I haven’t used the Drudge Report siren in a long time, but thought it was appropriate today to announce a monumental and historic US energy milestone: US crude oil production set a monthly record in January of 10.2 million barrels per day (bpd), based on the EIA’s most recent monthly forecast that was released yesterday (see top chart above).

January’s crude oil production topped the previous record of 10.04 million bpd established back in November 1970, more than 47 years ago.

Today’s weekly petroleum balance sheet from the EIA reports that daily crude oil production last week through February 2 surged by 330,000 barrels from the previous week to establish a new weekly record high of 10.25 million barrels.

The top chart [see link] also shows the remarkable and complete reversal in the 40-year decline in America’s crude oil output from 1970 to 2010 that has taken place in less than the last decade, thanks to the revolutionary twin drilling and extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

From only 5 million barrels per day in early 2010, the rebound in US oil production from the bonanza of shale oil accessed by technological marvels of engineering and scientific innovation brought daily domestic oil output above the 10 million barrel benchmark in November for the first time since 1970, and up to the new monthly record of 10.2 million barrels in January.

The new weekly production record of 10.25 million bpd last week further confirms the EIA estimate that US oil output will average 10.6 million bpd in 2018. It wasn’t that long ago that we were wallowing in an era of energy scarcity, worried about our dependence on foreign oil and constantly hearing dire warnings about “peak oil.”

For example, the bottom chart [see link] shows a Google Trends search interest history of the term “peak oil” back to 2004, which peaked back in September 2005 (and again in 2008) but started declining steadily, especially as the shale revolution turbocharged America’s oil production by reaching oil resources that were previously inaccessible with conventional drilling and extraction methods.

The record high oil production this year further solidifies America’s new status as a world energy superpower in a new era of US energy abundance.

Continued here.