NM oil production pushing US closer to energy independence, industry official says

New Mexico is the third-largest supplier of energy in the nation, and the state is poised to get even bigger, according to Terri King, who is the ConocoPhillips general manager for the San Juan Basin. King spoke at the Economic Forum of Albuquerque on Wednesday morning. As oil prices have spiked over the last several years and technology has developed to produce more oil and gas, she said, North America is poised to become a net exporter of energy for the first time. And for the first time in 40 years, the country is seeing major growth in energy production. "Now the U.S. is the energy envy of the world," King said. In New Mexico, ConocoPhillips has operations in the San Juan Basin, near Farmington, and in the Permian Basin, near Hobbs. Much of the state's energy growth has been in oil and gas drilling; the industry has 105,000 employees in the state and contributes 31 percent of the state's general fund dollars. (Click on the links to see our lists of the state's largest oil producers and gas producers.) That growth has occurred because oil companies are using new fracking technologies that can split shale and extract the oil and gas, King said...more