Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that hit New Mexico last year, the year 2020 turned out to be a record one for oil and gas production.
The New Mexico Oil Conservation Division reported the state ended the year with nearly 367.8 million barrels of oil produced which was a nearly 11% increase over the 2019 production of 331.8 million barrels of oil.
The Carlsbad Current-Argus reported that although 2020’s total was the highest since the OCD began tracking oil production in the 1970s, growth declined from an about 33.2 percent increase between 2018 which had a total of about 248.9 million barrels of oil produced to 2019.
Crude oil production wasn’t the only record breaker. So was natural gas as it had 1.9 trillion cubic feet of production, more than the previous record of 1.6 trillion cubic feet in 2001.
