When the Permian Basin in West Texas—which has been pumping oil for nearly a century—was fueling the U.S. and Allied forces in World War II, currently the world’s biggest conventional oil field, Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar, had not even been discovered. Ghawar, discovered in 1948, was put in production in the 1950s, and is now thought to be producing oil at a rate of 5 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, the Permian had been set for a decline in output until a decade or so ago. Hydraulic fracturing technologies allowed drillers to start fracking through shale formations which gave new life to the basin, whose current production is around 2.2 million bpd of oil. Now, a shale patch executive believes that the Permian can outgrow Ghawar in terms of oil production, thanks to substantially increased efficiency and lowered breakeven costs. Scott Sheffield, the founder of one of the companies with […]