Pic-of-the-Week: U.S. Crude Gains Concentrated in Few States (05/27/2014)

The Ongoing Surge in U.S. Crude Production is Highly Concentrated in Only a Few States – U.S. crude production has surged by more than 50% since 2009, from about 1.8 billion barrels to 2.8 billion barrels annually.

The geography underlying the oil produced in the U.S. each year is now roughly 1 billion barrels from Texas; 700 million barrels combined from North Dakota, Alaska, and California; 375 million barrels combined from Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Wyoming; and 750 million barrels from all other states combined.

So far, the growth in production is highly concentrated in only a handful of states. North Dakota production has more than tripled; Texas and Oklahoma have roughly doubled production; New Mexico has added 50%; and Louisiana and Wyoming have seen only modest increases. Among the major producing states, only Alaska and California have not seen long-run declines in production reversed or ended. Oil production is off roughly 5% in California and 20% in Alaska in the short run, and off 20% and 50%, respectively, the past decade.