According to a recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas production is growing faster than oil production in the Permian Basin.
As a result, a bottleneck has been created and the solutions are slow in coming. The EIA reported marketed natural gas production in the Permian grew by 60 percent from 2021 to 2025, going from 17.2 billion cubic feet a day to 27.6 b/cfd.
At the same time, crude oil production in the Permian grew 39 percent and went from 4.7 million barrels per day to 6.6 mb/d.
“The higher growth in natural gas production is the result of increasing gas-oil ratio,” stated the EIA. “The gas-oil ratio in the Permian Basin has steadily increased in the last five years. As the GOR rises, we estimate the production growth rate of natural gas will continue to exceed the growth rate of crude oil in the Permian region.”
In 2025 the ratio averaged nearly 4,200 cubic feet of natural gas per barrel of oil for an increase of 16 percent from 2021. EIA said the ratio will likely continue to increase as the basin matures.
A similar report from the American Petroleum Institute shows U.S. gas production up 27 percent since January 2019 with Texas, New Mexico and West Virginia accounting for 94 percent of the net growth, reported the Hobbs News-Sun.
Texas has led on a volumetric basis while New Mexico has led by percentage, surging 168 percent since 2019. These three states now account for 47 percent of total U.S. natural gas production, up from 35 percent in early 2019.
