Texas now can match Iraq in oil output

The biggest oil-producing state of the United States, Texas, pumped over 3 million barrels of crude oil per day in April, a record that can match the output of Iraq, the second largest OPEC producer, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, said in the report that Texas' oil production topped 3 million barrels per day in April, for the first time since the late 1970s.
Iraq's oil output in April was 3.2 million barrels per day, according to Bloomberg. The country's oil production fell to 2.9 million barrels in June, however, because of insurgent violence. That would drop it below Texas if the state's supply continued to rise, as it did every month since 2011.
Texas now is pumping 36 percent of the nation's oil, more than doubling its production in three years, according to the EIA. In total, the United States pumped 8.4 million barrels per day in April.
Since 2007 the United States has seen a dynamic transformation in oil and gas development spurred by hydraulic fracturing of dense rock formations, a new technology used in drilling shale wells.
The EIA said the nation pumped an average of 7.84 million barrels of crude oil per day at the end of 2013, more than 10 percent of total world production.
The country is expected to shift from a net importer to a net exporter by 2020 as shale production outpaces domestic demand. On an aggregate supply-demand basis, the country is rapidly approaching a self-sufficiency rate of 90 percent.
The International Energy Agency said last November that the United States is expected to become the world's top oil producer by 2015, surpassing current top energy producers including Russia and Saudi Arabia.