The impact of COVID-19 on the oil and gas industry has already been profound, with major oil companies announcing steep cuts in capital and oil prices plunging into negative territory for the first time in U.S. history. However, the full implications are only just beginning to unfold.

Following a year of pipeline capacity constraints and delayed pipeline projects, 2019 became the year of rapid expansion and increased production. The hot topic of “bottlenecks” faded and massive pipeline projects stole the limelight.

Despite the pipeline capacity constraints and delayed pipeline projects experienced last year, U.S. oil production keeps accelerating towards new highs. Production has been especially strong in the Permian Basin on both the New Mexico and Texas sides.

Thanks to a new AI framework, energy firms are now able to dive even deeper and look more than a kilometer beneath the surface with greater accuracy.

With the explosive growth of the Permian Basin, there seems to be a plethora of mergers taking place as oil companies rush to secure larger contiguous space to drill longer horizontal wells.

With Q1 2019 already behind us, now is the perfect time to review the trends, opportunities, and predictions made at the close of 2018.

According to new reports, two more pipeline projects are on track to go into service by the end of 2019.

Late last year, reports began to circulate that in-service dates for two new Mexican pipelines would be delayed. These pipelines, which include Enbridge’s Nueces-Brownsville project and multiple projects in Mexico, are intended to help move gas from West Texas to South Texas and beyond.

Once deemed a declining conventional basin, fracking and horizontal drilling technology have transformed the Permian Basin into a “Super Basin”. In 2018, Texas produced more oil than ever, and experts predict that this volume will only continue to grow over the next few years.

In the dry, dusty plains of West Texas, the two most important commodities right now are water and sand. The rush to pump oil out of the West Texas shale has quickly catapulted the U.S. to record-high production levels, but it has also created challenges.