Texas is currently producing more oil that any other state and more than many countries worldwide. However, analysts believe that its output has still not peaked and will rise further, the Houston Chronicle reported.
According to Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, Texas will be producing 4 million barrels per day by 2020, which is twice the amount produced last year. In 2012 the United States produced 6.5 million barrels per day, up on the 5.4 billion barrels recorded in 2010. This rise has allowed commodity prices to remain stable despite reducing oil supply from countries like Iran and Libya.
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Smitherman made his prediction at an oil and gas industry conference held by Bloomberg in Houston. Smitherman stated that such a rise in production would put Texas in the same league as the largest producers of oil in the world.
Production levels could reach 2.5 million barrels a day by the second half of 2014, Smitherman said. The Eagle Ford Shale, which currently leads the way in U.S. shale gas and oil production along with the Marcellus Shale in the north-east and the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, is currently churning out 600,000 barrels per day but over the next few years production may rise to 900,000 barrels, he predicted. Numbers are constantly changing but there is a definite tendency for production to go up, Smitherman told attendees.
