A $900 Billion Oil Treasure Lies Beneath West Texas Desert
- Permian’s Wolfcamp is biggest-ever U.S. crude accumulation
- Geological survey bolsters Pioneer Natural’s resource estimate
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In a troubled oil world, the Permian Basin is the gift that keeps on giving.
One portion of the giant field, known as the Wolfcamp formation, was found to hold 20 billion barrels of oil trapped in four layers of shale beneath the desert in West Texas, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a report on Tuesday. That’s almost three times larger than North Dakota’s Bakken play and the single largest U.S. unconventional crude accumulation ever assessed. At current prices, that oil is worth almost $900 billion.