U.S. oil production is rising at its fastest rate in nearly 98 years.
The region perhaps most responsible for the production surge is Texas, where thousands of oil wells dot the Permian basin.
This has made Texas a favorite hunting ground for the biggest and smallest oil producers of the nation. With one of the largest oil reserves in the world, the Permian basin helped Texas emerge as the third-largest oil producing region in the world, only behind Russia and Saudi Arabia.
With nearly 114,000 companies drilling in the region and many turning profitable even with crude prices as low as $50 a barrel, OPEC is feeling an oncoming threat to its oil dominance
OPEC’s concern is likely to increase in the next year, when bottlenecks related to pipelines eases with the addition of three new pipelines, thus enabling combined production of nearly 2 million barrels of oil a day.