The United States is now the biggest oil producer in the world – extracting 12 million barrels of the stuff per day (Saudi Arabia is around 10 million). The state of Texas is synonymous with oil. And while there are a number of oil producing areas in the state, the heart of Texan and US oil production is undoubtedly the Permian Basin. It currently produces about a third of all US oil. It is to the US, what the Ghawar field is to Saudi Arabia. On our route from Roswell, New Mexico, to San Angelo, Texas, we were cutting through this Mecca of black gold, and were curious about what we’d find.
Heading south out of Roswell, we passed fields of corn and huge herds of cattle. We started noticing the odd oil tank truck on the highway and some oil field services equipment (drill rigs, piping, pump trucks, etc.) stored on plots next to the road.
Driving into the town of Artesia, New Mexico, we spotted Hollyfrontier’s large Navajo Refinery. It’s hard to miss. It can turn about 100,000 barrels of crude oil into various refined petroleum products.
We also started passing more and more nodding donkeys and storage tanks.
Still in New Mexico, we took a left at Carlsbad, and passed a huge potash mining operation, another mainstay in the area. Just before reaching the town of Hobbs, we got out first sight of a big rig in action:
Another interesting sight:
The Permian is huge – covering a 500km by 400km stretch of mostly western Texas and parts of eastern New Mexico. We crossed over into Texas near Hobbs, and journeyed southeast towards the towns of Midland and Odessa, at the heart of the Permian.
The landscape in this part of Texas was endless flat grassy fields under big busy clouds. I’m not sure why, but I was sort of expecting dusty bleak desert conditions. This was not the case. In fact, during our trip all over the state, Ella and I were really impressed by Texas’s natural beauty.
The big names in oil – ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP – are actually not the ones drilling the stuff out of the ground. A few decades ago, drilling activities were palmed off to a growing group of specialists, called oil field services companies. The big names are Schlumberger, Baker Hughes, and Halliburton. These companies own and operate the rigs and fracking equipment, and rent out the drill pipe and tools. We spotted lots of oil field services equipment stored in fenced plots scattered on the outskirts of most towns we passed, as well as office buildings for some of these specialist operators.
Below, a scene from Friday Night Lights? While Texas is synonymous with oil, it is likewise associated with American Football. We got to see some of the action a few days later in San Antonio.
We spent the night in San Angelo. It seemed like a nice place, but we didn’t have a lot of time there to explore, unfortunately. We did manage to find “the best diner in town”, Roxie’s Diner, which happened to be owned by the mother of our Airbnb host. It was full of locals and had a very relaxed and friendly vibe. Good biscuit & grits too.
Not long after leaving San Angelo, we got hit by a biblical-level storm. We tried to brave through it for a while, but ended up “parking off” next to a convenience store in the small town of Eden (?) and just waited for it to pass. We had downloaded this really interesting podcast series called “Serial”, and were quite close to finishing the first season around about here.
Next stop, San Antonio…