How much has oil production increased in Texas over the last 16 months? 1 Bakken. (I think that’s a unit of measure, by the way.)

I’m starting to get a kick out of the idea that we measure humongous amounts of oil in terms of Bakkens.

Here’s the latest example, in terms of explaining the magnitude of what’s happening in Texas:

In just the last 16 months since October 2011 when the state produced 1.598 million bpd, Texas oil output has increased by almost 700,000 bpd to 2.295 million bpd in February, which is the equivalent of adding an entire new oil field the size of the North Dakota Bakken formation to the US oil supply (based on February production in the Bakken of 715,000 bpd).

Output increase in Texas over 18 months equals one Bakken.

That’s point number 3 at Carpe Diem’s post explaining The meteoric rise in Texas oil output continues and is one of the most remarkable energy success stories in US history.

To put this into perspective, the oil pulled out of the ground in Texas is more than the oil we import from the Persian Gulf countries:

Texas oil output in February at an average of 2.295 million bpd was 25.3% greater than the combined 1.83 million bpd of US oil imports that month from all of the Persian Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar).

The increase in 3 years is about 1.15M bopd. That increase in Texas alone is about 2/3rds (62%) of the oil we get from the Persian Gulf countries. Astounding.

You have got to check out the graph in that post. It is amazing. I’ll give a verbal description.

Production was declining at a steady rate from about 1986 until about 2003. Fairly sharp decline. Obviously the Peak Oilers were right. Just extend that graph out in a straight line and we can calculate the month when Texas oil production hits zero.

Umm… Except the production curve went flat through about 2010 instead of constantly falling. That violates Peak Oil doctrine.

Then a serious oopsie for the Peak Oil disciples. The graph after about 2010 looks like the space shuttle – extremely sharp increase in production, but not quite a straight line though.  Production accelerates back to 1986 production levels in about 3 years.

The primary fields are Eagle Ford, which I’ve written about some, and the Permian. You know, that old, washed up, has-been, depleted,  bust-hit-here-and-never-gonna-see-good-times-again Permian.