Colorado’s Oil Production Booming

Last year, the state broke an almost six-decade record in producing crude oil.

March 19, 2014

DENVER – Energy production in the United States has hit another boom time, with North Dakota and Colorado especially leading in generating homegrown energy. Colorado produced close to 63.2 million barrels of crude oil last year, smashing a nearly 60-year-old record, the Denver Business Journal reports.

That production registered a 28% leap from 2012, when the state’s gas and oil wells gushed about 49.3 million barrels of oil, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). The previous record stood at almost 62 million barrels of oil in 1956. State officials hedged on the numbers this week, saying they are preliminary, but adding that production tallies for last year will probably increase rather than decline.

“Colorado is playing an important role in securing and expanding our domestic energy supplies, including cleaner-burning natural gas,” said Todd Hartman, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. “At the same time we are producing these resources under one of the strongest regulatory regimes in the country. Carefully producing these important resources while fully protecting our communities and environment remains our focus.”

Oil production in the state has been on the upswing recently as energy businesses have invested billions into extracting the black gold from the Denver-Julesburg Basin via fracking and from the Niobrara rock formation through horizontal drilling.

While oil production has boomed, Colorado’s natural gas reserves have dropped because of the higher price of crude oil. Also contributing to the decline in natural gas is a reduction in demand because of new sources of the fuel in the eastern part of the United States.

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