Occidental believes U.S. oil production will be less than government forecast
Occidental Petroleum expects daily U.S. oil production likely will grow by just 500K bbl/day this year, nearly 100K bbl/day below the official government forecast executive Frederick Forthuber said Tuesday.
80%-90% of the increase will come from the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, Forthuber told the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.
Occidental itself expects its Permian production this year will average 560K-590K boe/day and has allocated $2.3B-$2.6B to add 10 net drilling rigs on average, bringing 380-410 gross operated wells online in the basin.
Also at CERAWeek, Occidental (OXY) CEO Vicki Hollub said the company is considering plans to extract lithium from feedstock it already handles for its chemicals and oil refining operations.
“We are looking at possible lithium projects,” Hollub told CERAWeek, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The CEO also said the company has looked at investing in nuclear technologies and believes modular designs could evolve to a place of more prominence in the energy mix.
Hollub spoke of Occidental’s (OXY) carbon capture strategy as an important path for the energy transition; the company recently unveiled plans Thursday to develop a new carbon capture and sequestration hub along the Texas Gulf Coast.