Remember the stories about settlers who carved GTT (Gone to Texas) in their front door when they abandoned their farms and moved to Texas? It seems like the oil industry should be posting GTTP (Gone to the Permian) on their websites. I have Google alerts set up on a few Permian plays and have never seen anything like the steady stream of deals announced where companies are shedding assets to beef up or get their foot in the door in the Permian, primarily the western Permian. One estimate is that 68% of new production growth is coming from the Permian.
Besides the obvious economic factors, I open it up for discussion. How much of this is due to:
1) hostility to drilling elsewhere;
2) herd mentality;
3) Wall Street/investor expectations and pressure?
These are smart people so I have to think the primary driver is economic. I have heard estimates of up to 80,000 BOE recoverable PER ACRE in the better parts of the Permian. But still, the growth is so lopsided, I just can’t shake the feeling some of these other drivers are at play.
Thoughts?