How much oil does Texas produce? More than entire countries

The Eagle Ford Shale boosted Texas oil production to 74 million barrels in March, the highest number since 1984.

Texas oil producers pulled more oil out of the ground than many countries in recent months, putting it in the ranks of such powerhouses as Kuwait and Venezuela.

The latest numbers show Texas produced 74 million barrels of oil in March and 73 million barrels of oil in April, more than double the output per month from 2009, according to the Energy Information Administration.

If Texas were a country, it would rank 15th in the world in terms of oil production, according to FuelFix.com. That's thanks in large part to the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin where drillers use horizontal drilling hydraulic fracturing to pass through the shale formations and free the oil.

The last time Texas posted this much oil was 1984, when Larry Hagman was playing fictional oil magnate J.R. Ewing on the television show Dallas.

The following decades saw production fall sharply as the country relied more on imported oil. The low point came as recently as 2010 with only 31 million barrels produced.

Since then, it?s been a steady upward climb, averaging 43 million barrels in 2011, 60 million barrels in 2012 and 70 million barrels in the first four months of this year.

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Nicholas covers the energy and banking beats for the Dallas Business Journal. Subscribe the Energy Inc. newsletter

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