Top International Energy Story Of The Year? -- We'll See -- September, 15, 2019

The Permian is now the world's top oil producer -- Robert Rapier, senior contributor, energy, Forbes, April 6, 2019. Link here.

Conventional wisdom held that Ghawar has been producing 5 million barrels per day (BPD) of crude oil for decades. The prospectus notes that Ghawar has produced more than half of the Kingdom's cumulative oil production to date, but it reported that 2018 production was only 3.8 million BPD.

We don't know for certain the reasons, but we now have this report from Saudi Aramco that Ghawar produced 3.8 million BPD in 2018. The Energy Information Administration reports that the Permian Basin is now producing 4.2 million BPD. For all of 2018 the Permian Basin averaged 3.4 million BPD, but production during the year increased by 1.1 million BPD. Production hit the 3.8 million BPD mark in October and has risen in every month since then.

So, we can reasonably conclude that right now -- regardless of the reason -- the Permian Basin has overtaken Ghawar as the world's top oil-producer. That may not last if Saudi is constraining production in Ghawar, or if Permian production slows down anytime soon.

But it marks the first time in decades that Ghawar wasn't the top-producing oil field in the world.

What about Khurais oil field?

Well, what about it?

Wiki link here.