Texas oil production continues record growth

Fuel Fix:

All signs pointed to a slowdown in the state’s oil and gas industry last year, but Texas production instead intensified to near-record levels, spurred by higher-than-expected oil prices driven by overseas turmoil, a new industry report shows.

Statewide crude oil production is now poised to surpass its 1972 all-time high within two years, said Karr Ingham, an economist for the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.
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The number of active oil and gas rigs in Texas rose to 891, up 6 percent from the same time last year and total oil and gas employment spiked to record levels of 297,800, according to the index.

And those numbers don’t take into account the full impact of the industry’s job expansion, Ingham said.

Contract workers who are not on the payrolls of oil and gas companies aren’t counted as part of the energy industry in the Texas Workforce Commission numbers, which means the industry likely is having a much broader economic ripple effect on the state’s economy than the data show, Ingham said.

“The president wants to crow about job growth, he needs to get up every day and say, ‘God bless Texas,’ because that’s where it’s coming from,” Ingham said.

The oil and gas industry contributes about 25 percent of all taxes collected by the state, Ingham said.
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While oil and gas remain an important part of the Texas economy, it is just a part, as Texas is also a leader in the tech industry and exports.  If the federal government would get out of the way of energy development the country as a whole would be more prosperous.