1 week Ago
DALLAS — There has been some crude talk in our politics lately. I should be more specific..
.crude oil talk; rumblings that the U.S.
should be producing and exporting more. On both of those counts, the country already is. A big reason for that is.
..Texas.
Here are the year-by-year trend lines for U.S. oil and natural gas production.
Notice how they have rocketed higher over the last decade. What about exports? Here are the trend lines for how much oil and natural gas the U.S.
exports to the world. Notice the same steep ascent over the last decade. Significantly, the U.
S. Energy Information Administration reported in March 2024 that the “United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time..
.for the past six years in a row.” 2023 was a big year, and so was 2022 Last year in particular was a historic blowout.
Nationally, more oil and gas was produced than in any other year. If we drill down a little further, we see that Texas produced a whopping 43% of all oil and 27% of all natural gas extracted in the country’s record-setting year. Both oil and natural gas production in Texas also set fresh all-time records in 2023.
Even before those figures came out, the industry in Texas was still gushing about the year before that , when oil and gas employment in Texas surged–making it one of the best job growth years in the business since 1990. Wages for all those Texas oil and gas workers were also up by billions of dollars. Politics and the oil patch Those are the numbers, but you will probably hear political candidates putting differing spins on what has happened in the industry in recent years or what might happen after the upcoming election.
We even hear conflicting opinions about politics and the oil patch from the people in the industry. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas does a quarterly survey of oil and gas firms in Texas. The most recent Dallas Fed Energy Survey was published in late June.
As usual, the questionnaire included comments from people in the business , some of whom had complaints about the current U.S. administration, like: “Overregulation of our industry by the federal government is hurting our economy”.
Another added, "This administration does not fully understand our business”. But there was also this comment about a potential second Trump administration: “Candidate Trump has promised to lower the price of oil. He may again seek the help of Saudi Arabia to do this.
If so, then I will expect a lower oil price and another recession in the U.S. oil patch.
” Perhaps some optimism for consumers...
As we watch the industry fire on all cylinders and we await the outcome of upcoming elections, there is some optimism for consumers who are enjoying lower gasoline prices. The insiders polled by the Dallas Fed estimated that over the next year , the price of oil (which has an enormous impact on the cost of gasoline) will probably stay roughly where we have seen it for much of this summer. More Right on the Money content: Related Articles The downside to quitting the stock market Expert: Texas on track to become #1 in battery storage for electricity Progressive Insurance confirms it's "temporarily restricting new homeowners business" in Texas and several other states.
What does that mean for you?.
