What Tips the Balance in the Permian?

Saltwater production is a necessary by-product of oil production. Only in rare cases do you get 100% oil flow from a well, and even then, a reservoir will ultimately “water-out,” making further production pointless and uneconomic. The U.S. Permian basin has been the source of most growth in U.S. daily oil output for the last decade, if not a little longer. As the EIA graph below illustrates, other shale reservoirs are in decline or barely keeping even with past performance. What hasn’t gotten a lot of attention until recently…