MIDLAND, Texas — The Lone Star State produces more oil and gas than anywhere else in the Country.
"Texas is the energy capital of the world, our state alone is responsible for 43% of the oil production in America, 26% of natural gas, if Texas were it's own country we'd be the third largest natural gas producing country in the world," said Todd Staples, President of The of Texas Oil and Gas Association.
Russia is also a big player in the oil industry, but with sanctions on, countries all over the globe are looking elsewhere for oil.
"Russia was providing about 7% of the world's oil and natural gas and with the European Union continuing to ween themselves off of that because of the actions that they've taken against Ukraine, that production has to come from somewhere," Staples said.
That somewhere, could be from right here, in the Permian Basin.
"The Permian Basin is really being looked at as where were going to meet not only domestic needs but the worlds energy supply, play a big big role," Staples said.
Since the sanctions we're placed on Russia, the Biden administration has tried to up oil and gas production at home with a lot of that taking place here in Texas.
"We've certainly had good signs lately, record high number of permits in the Permian basin has been encouraging, in the last few weeks we've had about 30 rigs nationally over 2/3rds of those have been in the lone star state so that's a big plus factor in going the way we need to go," Staples said.
One benefit of increasing oil production is more jobs in the industry.
"The good news for Texans is that we've had positive job growth," Staples said. "16 out of the last 18 months we've seen positive job growth in the upstream sector, which was hit pretty hard in the pandemic."
Even though gas prices have gone up, Texas is doing its part to supply oil and gas for the U.S. and beyond.
"The good news is that our nation in North America, our partners have the opportunity to really demonstrate not only energy security but a higher level of energy independence." Staples said.