Animated chart of the day: Oil production in America’s Big Three oil fields (Bakken, Eagle Ford and Permian Basin) by Mark J. Perry

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A Flourish data visualisatio

The animated “bar chart race” visualization above shows the average daily oil production in America’s “Big Three” oil fields — the Permian Basin in west Texas, the Eagle Ford Shale in south-central Texas and the Bakken Formation in North Dakota (and Montana) — on a monthly basis from January 2007 to August 2019 (EIA data here).  A few observations:

1. Oil production in the Permian Basin topped 1 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first time in May 2011, 2 million bpd in July 2016 (a little more than 5 years later), 3 million bpd in February 2018 (less than 2 years later) and 4 million bpd in April 2019 (a little more than a year later).

2. Eagle Ford’s oil output surpassed 1 million bpd for the first time in May 2013 and the Bakken followed six months later in November 2013 with more than 1 million bpd.

3. Combined oil output in the Big Three exceeded 2 million bpd in November 2011, 3 million bpd in April 2013, 4 million bpd in May 2014, 5 million in October 2017, 6 million in July 2018 and 7 million this month (more than 58% of total US oil production). That’s about a 7X increase from the combined daily production in the “Big Three” of about 1 million barrels in early 2007.

MP: The animated chart shows visually how the revolutionary technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, developed in the USA by American petropreneurs, made it possible to access oceans of oil trapped in shale rock formations in Texas and North Dakota that were previously inaccessible using conventional oil drilling and led to America’s rise to become the world’s No. 1 producer of oil several years ago. Carpe oleu