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Built by the team behind OpsFlo — field service & billing software for oilfield service companies. Capture tickets at the wellsite and bill in days, not weeks.
The major producing basins and shale plays — where they are, what they produce, and the formations that make them tick, from the Permian to Ghawar.
An oil and gas basin is a region where the right geology came together — source rock, reservoir, trap and seal — to accumulate producible hydrocarbons. A handful of basins produce the bulk of the world's oil and gas.
This guide maps the major US shale plays and conventional basins, plus the global giants, with the key formations and production facts for each.
The largest US oil basin — Midland & Delaware.
Read →North Dakota's tight-oil engine.
Read →Oil, condensate and gas in one play.
Read →The largest US gas formation.
Read →Deep, high-pressure gas.
Read →Oklahoma's stacked plays.
Read →All the major plays at a glance.
Read →Ghawar, North Sea, Vaca Muerta & more.
Read →
Built by the team behind OpsFlo — field service & billing software for oilfield service companies. Capture tickets at the wellsite and bill in days, not weeks.
The Permian Basin in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is by far the largest, accounting for roughly 44% of US rigs and over 5 million barrels of oil per day. It contains the Midland and Delaware sub-basins.
A basin is a large geological region of sedimentary rock. A play is a specific group of fields or prospects sharing the same geology — for example, the Wolfcamp play within the Permian Basin.
The Barnett Shale near Fort Worth, Texas, was the birthplace of modern shale-gas hydraulic fracturing in the late 1990s and 2000s. The Bakken then proved the model for tight oil.