While oil prices have stabilized around $40 per barrel, local oilfield production has continued to slow down, according to information from the Railroad Commission of Texas.
In May, local operators reported 1.02 million barrels of crude oil produced, which is a decrease from April’s 1.15 million barrels. In March operators reported 1.2 million barrels, in February 1.4 million barrels of crude oil produced and in January 1.21 million barrels.
Last May, Scurry County oil wells produced 1.33 million barrels of crude oil.
Year-to-date, local producers have reported just less than 6.1 million barrels of crude oil compared to just less than 6.6 million barrels during the first five months of 2019.
Statewide in May, operators preliminarily reported producing 91.1 million barrels of crude oil, compared to 104.8 million barrels in April and 107.2 million barrels in March.
May’s daily average production was just more than 2.94 million barrels.
Last May, operators preliminarily reported 101.9 million barrels of crude oil produced, which was updated to 132.1 million barrels.
Crude oil and natural gas production for May 2020 came from 170,718 oil wells and 86,469 gas wells.
The commission reported that from June 2019 to May 2020, total Texas reported production was 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil and 10.4 trillion cubic feet of total gas. Crude oil production reported by the RRC is limited to oil produced from oil leases and does not include condensate, which is reported separately by the RRC.
In Scurry County, the commission issued eight permits to drill wells in July. Thirty-three permits were issued in July 2019.
In Districts 8 and 8A, which includes Scurry and the surrounding counties, 179 permits to drill new wells were issued in July, compared to 157 permits in June and 126 issued in May.
The commission issued a total of 351 original drilling permits in July 2020 compared to 912 in July 2019. The July 2020 total includes 286 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, six to re-enter plugged well bores and 40 for re-completions of existing well bores.
The breakdown of well types for original drilling permits in July 2020 is 70 oil, 27 gas, 232 oil or gas, 9 injection and 13 other permits.
Scurry County operators reported 13 completions in July. In July 2019 operators reported 33 completions. Many of the completions both years were listed as “well record only,” and included temporarily abandoned wells, repairs and wells that have been completed but not activated.
In districts 8 and 8A, 719 completions were reported in July, compared to 577 completions in June and 439 completions in May.
In July commission staff processed 1,125 oil, 211 gas and 367 injection completions for new drills, re-entries and re-completions, compared to 499 oil, 156 gas, and 44 injection completions in July 2019.
Total well completions processed for 2020 year to date for new drills, re-entries and re-completions are 9,510 compared to 5,749 recorded during the same period in 2019.
Many of the state’s top crude producing counties reported decreases in production from April to May.
Midland County was the state’s top producing county with 12.7 million barrels of crude oil produced. In April, operators reported 13.7 million barrels of crude oil produced.
Martin County retained the state’s second spot with 8.6 million barrels produced in April, a decrease of 300,000 barrels. Reeves County remained in third place with 6.8 million barrels, a decrease of 800,000 barrels. Karnes County was fourth with 6.1 million barrels, a decrease of 1.3 million barrels. Neighboring Howard County reported 5.0 million barrels of crude produced in May, compared to 5.9 million barrels in April.