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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. New Mexico industry leaders respond to the question: “What lasting impact do you believe the pandemic will have on your industry?”
ENERGY
Raye Miller, president of Regeneration Energy Corp. in Artesia
“The oil industry has seen wide price swings in the past year. No one expected to see negative oil prices. While prices have recovered, capital investment has not. Drilling rig utilization is still greatly below a year ago level. Consolidation has occurred and some highly leveraged companies went broke. While new lockdowns could again reduce demand for oil, companies are in better shape to withstand it. Most are reducing debt currently. The greater worry for the future is the drive to stop domestic production of fossil fuels. This strategy is so shortsighted as the U.S. will continue to use fossil fuels for years and every barrel produced outside the U.S. results in mo
Pump jacks at sunrise in the oil fields east of Artesia. (Jim Thompson/Albuquerque Journal)
With oil prices holding fairly steady above $40 per barrel, producers are breathing a bit easier in the Permian Basin in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas.
Most producers have reopened the spigots on existing wells that they shut in last May after the pandemic cut oil demand and sliced prices to 20-year lows. Some operators are even drilling new wells, while others are taking the final steps needed to get oil flowing from ones they drilled before the pandemic hit but that they let sit idle until now.