Nation’s Largest Oil and Gas Supply Found in Southwest

(WASHINGTON, DC) The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Thursday the largest continuous oil and gas resource potential ever assessed in the history of the United States. The Delaware Basin portion of the Permian Basin, located in Texas and New Mexico, contain an estimated mean of 46.3 billion barrels of oil, 281 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 20 billion barrels of liquid natural gas according to an assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This estimate is for continuous unconventional oil and consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources. Whether or not it is profitable to produce these resources has not been evaluated but Christmas came a few weeks early this year, said U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. “American strength flows from American energy, and as it turns out, we have a lot of American energy. 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.” The announcement comes at the same time that OPEC and Russia reached a deal to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day during the two-day OPEC meeting in Vienna. The group will use October production levels as a baseline for cuts, which will last for six months beginning in January with a review set for April.