Whether it’s the gas in your car, the package on your doorstep, or the electricity fueling the next wave of artificial intelligence, much of the energy driving the American way of life starts thousands of feet beneath West Texas in the Permian Basin.
"Energy is the lifeblood of a modern economy. It's the foundation of the lifestyle that we enjoy," Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an exclusive interview.
Bartiromo spent two days in Midland, Texas — the heart of U.S. energy production — gathering insights from industry leaders like Wirth to explore fracking and the technology monitoring the oil-producing region that’s fueling a vision of American energy independence.
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Wirth said fossil fuels go far beyond powering gas and diesel engines — they’re essential to producing plastics and other everyday goods.
"It goes into pharmaceuticals, medicines, clothing and everyday goods. It enables mechanized agriculture," he added.
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But even as the region produces record amounts of oil and gas, a new challenge is emerging — abundance without infrastructure.
Diamondback Energy CEO Kaes Van’t Hof told Bartiromo producers are generating more natural gas than they can move, forcing some to sell at a loss.
"In the Permian, we almost produce gas by accident. We produce six million barrels of oil a day. We produce almost 30 BCF [billion cubic feet] a day of gas, which is about a quarter of the U.S. production," he said.
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"Our problem here is that we can't build pipelines fast enough to get the gas out of the basin to the demand market," he said.
Even with those constraints, Chevron Shale and Tight Vice President Kim McHugh said the Permian Basin remains one of the fastest-growing regions for oil and gas production worldwide — and is expected to stay a key driver of U.S. output as technology and efficiency continue to expand capacity.
