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As of May 13, 2024, the Permian Region of Texas had 317 active drilling rigs, up from 315 the previous month. This is down from 356 rigs one year earlier, a decrease of 10.96%. The Permian Basin is the region in the United States with the most oil rigs, about six times more than the second-ranked Eagle Ford Basin, which is also mostly located in Texas.

The Permian Basin is a sizable sedimentary basin that extends across 55 counties in western Texas and southeast New Mexico in the United States. It is renowned for having abundant quantities of natural gas, petroleum, and potassium. It is made up of more than 7,000 fields and spans an area of more than 86,000 square miles that is roughly 250 miles broad and 300 miles long.

The first well was drilled by W.H. Abrams in 1920, but it could not be economically viable because it barely produced 10 barrels of oil per day. The well was named Santa Rita in honor of the Patron Saint of the Impossible when Texon Energy tried again in August 1921 after several months of failure. Oil first emerged from the Santa Rita well in May 1923, almost two years after drilling began. The well produced for nearly 70 years till it was plugged off in 1990.

Oil production had decreased more than 60% from its peak in the early 1970s by the mid-2000s. With the advent of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing methods, the number of rigs used for horizontal drilling has increased from 275 in January 2022 to 329 in August 2022. The Permian Basin’s production has increased as a result.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) stated in its productivity report of June that oil output in the Permian is due to increase by 84,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a record 5.316 million bpd.