As the price of a barrel of oil hovers around $20 per barrel, local oilfield production continued to slow and the number of permits issued for new wells fell by more than half, compared to last year.
In January, local operators reported 1.21 million barrels of crude oil produced in Scurry County’s oilfields compared to December’s 1.23 million barrels. In November operators reported 1.18 million barrels and in October 1.12 million barrels.
Last January, Scurry County oil wells produced 1.34 million barrels of crude oil.
Statewide in January, operators preliminarily reported producing 106.1 million barrels of crude oil, a daily average of 3.4 million barrels.
Last January, the commission preliminarily reported 96.1 million barrels of crude oil, a daily average of 3.1 million barrels. Those figures were updated to 126.8 million barrels of crude oil produced, a daily average of 4.1 million barrels.
Crude oil and natural gas production as reported to the commission for January came from 173,067 oil wells and 86,957 gas wells.
The commission reported that from February 2019 to January 2020, total Texas reported production was 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil and 9.9 trillion cubic feet of total gas. Crude oil production reported by the commission is limited to oil produced from oil leases and does not include condensate, which is reported separately.
In Scurry County, the commission issued six permits to drill wells in March. Fifteen permits were issued in March 2019.
In Districts 8 and 8A, which includes Scurry and the surrounding counties, 393 permits to drill new wells were issued in March.
Statewide, the commission issued a total of 744 original drilling permits in March compared to 1,137 in March 2019.
The March 2020 total included 671 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, six to re-enter plugged well bores and 56 for re-completions of existing well bores.
The breakdown of well types for original drilling permits in March was 189 oil, 43 gas, 468 oil or gas, 40 injection and four other permits.
Scurry County operators reported 38 completions in March. In March 2019 operators reported 34 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, 472 completions were reported in March.
This March, commission staff processed 1,054 oil, 313 gas and 240 injection completions for new drills, re-entries and re-completions, compared to 493 oil, 127 gas and 43 injection completions in March 2019.
Total well completions processed for 2020 year to date for new drills, re-entries and re-completions are 3,857, compared to 2,469 recorded during the same time period in 2019.
Midland County maintained its position as the top producing county with 13.3 million barrels of crude oil produced in January. That’s an increase from the 12.6 million barrels produced in December.
Martin County retained the state’s second spot with 9.3 million barrels produced in October.
Karnes County moved into third with 8 million barrels while Reeves County fell to fourth place, with 7.6 million barrels. Neighboring Howard County remained in fifth place with 5.6 million barrels.