U.S. Oil Reserves Highest Since at Least 1975 on Shale

Proved reserves of crude and lease condensate in the U.S. rose 9.3 percent in 2013 as drillers showed they could extract more oil than previously thought from shale formations in places like Texas and North Dakota. Reserves increased 3.1 billion barrels to 36.5 billion, the Energy Information Administration said today in its annual U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves report. It was the fifth year in a row that proved reserves increased. They also exceeded 36 billion barrels for the first time since 1975. Proved reserves, or resources that can be recovered under existing economic and operating conditions, grew after U.S. oil output surged to the highest level in 31 years. Companies used horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to extract oil from underground shale rock layers that sat untouched a decade ago. “We know there is oil,” Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., said in a telephone interview from New York. “We know it will exceed even the most optimistic forecasts. That’s the huge leap forward. You’re talking about potentially a 50 percent increase in proved reserves in the next three years.” The government’s annual estimates of proved reserves are based on survey responses from 480 domestic operators of oil and gas wells, according to the EIA. By Dan Murtaugh and Harry R. Weber