After Two Tough Years, Texas Energy Sector Gets: ‘The Moment We’ve Been Waiting For’

This week, President Donald Trump signed executive orders to revive two controversial oil pipelines. While the moves may help oil and gas producers in North Dakota and Canada, the energy sector in Texas has been plowing ahead on its own turnaround.Texas already stands apart from most oil-producing states because it avoided a recession after oil prices plunged in late 2014. Now the beaten-down segment is showing renewed life.Jobs in mining and logging have grown for three months in a row, reversing a long string of declines. Several companies recently closed billion-dollar deals in the Permian Basin and one buyer predicted that oil production would soar there over the next several years. The Permian produces over 2.1 million barrels a day, almost twice as much oil as the next largest field in the U.S., according to government estimates.The Texas Alliance of Energy Producers, which has 3,000 members, just released an index that showed oil and gas activity rose in December for the first time in 24 months. It appears that the industry bottomed out in the fourth quarter of 2016, said Karr Ingham, petroleum economist for the group.“This is the moment we've been waiting for,” Ingham said on Thursday. “There’s still a lot of pain in the market -- companies that were lost, jobs that were lost. But we’re on the way up again.”  Continue reading...