Permian Basin
From Freepedia
The Permian Basin is a basin in the western part of the U.S. state of Texas, from just south of Lubbock to just south of Midland & Odessa, and it extends Westward into the Southeastern part of New Mexico. It is so named because it has one of the thickest deposits of rocks from the Permian geologic period in the world. Midland Basin is the largest component basin, Delaware Basin is the second largest, and Marfa Basin is the smallest. It underlies an area approximately 250 miles wide and 300 miles long.
The Permian Basin is also a large oil and natural gas field located in the Mid-Continent Oil Producing Areaformat this article to print. The entire Permian Basin during 1966 produced a total of 607 million barrels of oil and 2.3 trillion cubic feet of gas for a total of $2 billion. A cumulative total of 11.3 billion barrels of oil had been produced. Intrastate and interstate gas pipeline systems were expanded throughout the area, and Midland-Odessa was the headquarters for the oil and gas industryqv in the Permian Basin area. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on petrochemical refineries and supplemental construction work in the Permian Basin, which was rated the largest inland petrochemical complex in the United States. Some of the more commonly known Permian Basin petrochemical products were synthetic rubber, plastics, emulsion paints, solvents, food wrappers, nylon, ammonia, nitric acid, hydrogen, and fertilizer. In 1992 the Texas counties of the Permian basin produced over 217 million barrels of oil. Total production for that region up to the beginning of 1993 was over 14.9 billion barrels
The following counties are all part of the Permian Basin:
Andrews County, Texas pop. 13,004;
Borden County, Texas pop. 729;
Crane County, Texas pop. 3,996;
Dawson County, Texas pop. 14,985;
Ector County, Texas pop. 121,123;
Eddy County, New Mexico pop. 51,658;
Gaines County, Texas pop. 14,467;
Glasscock County, Texas pop. 1,406;
Howard County, Texas pop. 33,627;
Lea County, New Mexico pop. 55,511;
Loving County, Texas pop. 67;
Martin County, Texas pop. 4,746;
Midland County, Texas pop. 116,009;
Pecos County, Texas pop. 16,809;
Reeves County, Texas pop. 13, 137;
Terrell County, Texas pop. 12,761;
Upton County, Texas pop. 3,404;
Ward County, Texas pop. 10,909;
Winkler County, Texas pop. 7,173;
As of the 2000 census the Permian Basin had a population of 499,521.
Other counties sometimes considered part of the Permian Basin are: Brewster County, Texas pop. 8,866; Culberson County, Texas pop. 2,975; Jeff Davis County, Texas pop. 2,207; Mitchell County, Texas pop. 9,698; Presidio County, Texas pop. 7,304; Reagan County, Texas pop. 3,326; Scurry County, Texas pop. 16,361; Sterling County, Texas pop. 1,393;
If you include those counties the population of the Permian Basin comes to 551,651.
See also: University of Texas of the Permian Basin
