Throughout the United States there are hundreds of oil fields operating daily. Together these fields produce billions of barrels of oil each year. In this blog we are starting our countdown of the top 10 largest producing oil fields in the U.S.
10. Mississippi Canyon, Gulf of Mexico
The Mississippi Canyon oil fields have been drilled since the late 1970s and produce about 15 million barrels of oil per year. The company Shell kicked off the drilling in 1979 with the Cognac project. This offshore drilling platform set milestones for deep water pipeline engineering and reached a maximum depth of 1,023 feet. Drilling continued throughout the 1990s and 2000s, with other companies such as ExxonMobil and Anadarko Petroleum starting up projects.
9. Wasson, Texas
The Wasson oil field has been producing oil since its discovery in 1936 and is located five short miles from the New Mexico state line. Over the decades the field has slowly expanded to hold its over 2,000 wells and has since capped out at its present size of 62,500 acres. It is the second largest oil field in Texas and has produced 19 million barrels of oil per year.
8. Belridge, South California
The Belridge South oil field located in California’s San Joaquin Valley, is one of the largest oil fields in the state. By the end of 2008 it was estimated that there were 6,253 active wells still on the site. The site is run as a combined venture between Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil–under the name Aera Energy, LLC. According to its annual reports, yearly this site produces 23 million barrels of oil.
7. Green Canyon, Gulf of Mexico
Under the control of the Bureau of Energy Management the Green Canyon oil fields produce 27 million barrels of oil a year. However, the field is operated by several different companies, such as BHP Billiton, Chevron Corporation, Marathon Oil and many others. This oil field is also associated with its well-known cold seep–the Bush Hill cold seep. Cold seeps occur over fissures on the seafloor, hydrogen sulfide and methane seep out of those fissures, and emerge over an area several hundred meters wide. Cold seeps are known for creating outstanding environments for species of fish and plants to thrive.
6. Kuparuk River, Alaska
The Kuparuk River oil field in Alaska was first discovered by the Atlantic Richfield Company in 1969. Oil production then began in 1981, and since then, the field has been producing 29 million barrels of oil per year. Currently, the Kuparuk River oil field is estimated to have a possible 2 billion more barrels of recoverable reserves.
Reach Out to Tiger General
To the workers out on the oil rigs and in the field, thank you for making this industry so successful. To everyone else, we hope you found this blog informative and interesting. Stay tuned for the second portion of this blog where we cover the top 5 oil fields.
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