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Oklahoma is a leading energy producer with an economy increasingly concentrated on the oil and gas industry, economists say.

What Oil and Natural Gas Mean to Big-Energy Oklahoma

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Oklahoma is a leading energy producer with an economy increasingly concentrated on the oil and gas industry, economists say.

Oklahoma is all about oil, natural gas and, increasingly, wind energy.

Roughly one-quarter of all jobs in Oklahoma are tied to the energy industry, either directly or indirectly, says Mickey Hepner, an economist and Dean of the University of Central Oklahoma’s College of Business Administration.

The state has a unique historical stake in the oil industry, but Oklahoma today is as much an energy state as perhaps it’s ever been, Hepner says, and oil and natural gas helped the state survive the recent recession.

Latest Posts

Reuters: SandRidge ‘Adapted’ Chesapeake Playbook, Now Absorbing Similar Scrutiny

SandRidge

Together as company president and CEO, Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon built Chesapeake Energy into the second-largest natural gas producer in the U.S. And while each have very different personalities, Ward may have borrowed some of the same “idiosyncratic business practices” when he left Chesapeake in 2006 to found SandRidge Energy, according to a new [...]

This is What the Keystone XL Pipeline Looks Like

A worker inspects a segment of the Keystone Pipeline before it's lowered into a trench near Stroud, Okla.

Construction of the southern portion of TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline has been underway since August, and crews in Oklahoma started laying, welding, inspecting and burying the bright, teal-green pipeline in November.

Colorado Regulators Considering Even Larger Drilling Setbacks

State oil and gas regulators in Colorado are considering rules that would expand the minimum buffer between wells and buildings. Colorado requires 150-foot setbacks in rural areas and 350-foot buffers in urban parts of the state. Earlier this year, regulators there said they were considering making 350 feet the standard in both areas. The latest [...]

Regulators and Energy Industry Debate Proposed Disposal Well Notification Rule

Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry is resisting a rule change proposed by the Corporation Commission’s top pollution official. Tim Baker, who manages pollution abatement for the commission’s oil and gas conservation division, suggested the rule at an informal meeting on Wednesday. The Journal Record’s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports: A proposed rule change would require injection [...]

Why West Texas Intermediate Lost Its Status, and What it Means for Oklahoma

Cushing Crossroads

The U.S. Energy Information Agency used to use West Texas Intermediate as the price benchmark for its oil forecasts. But not anymore. The agency will has dumped WTI, which is priced at Oklahoma’s Cushing oil hub, and will use North Sea Brent for its energy outlook. So why did the oil lose its status? The blame [...]

Map: Where Oklahoma Oil is Produced

Click here for our interactive map of oil production in Oklahoma.

Oil production in Oklahoma has strong geographic trends and economic importance. How does your county compare? Explore our interactive map.

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