EIA: Public Companies Comprise Just 2% of Total U.S. Oil & Gas Companies, but Are Responsible for 68% of Total U.S. Oil & Gas Production

 

     I have had the opportunity to work for both public and private oil & gas companies in the Appalachian region, where, according to this analysis, 80% of oil and 85% of natural gas are produced by public companies, but they only make up 1% of total companies. I have also done consulting work for a private company drilling the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and Texas, where private companies produce 55% of the natural gas.

     As the title of the post notes, 68% of U.S. oil & gas is produced by publicly traded companies, but they only make up 2% of the total oil & gas producing companies. Private companies include companies funded by private equity and small operating companies that produce a lot of low-profit-margin wells with small amounts of production, aka. stripper wells.

     EIA notes that there are about 12,000 oil & gas producing companies in the U.S. and 2%, or roughly 240 companies, are public companies.

“Massive scale, prime drilling locations, and advanced technologies help publicly traded oil and gas producers maintain their edge on production. Publicly traded companies generally report lower breakeven prices—the minimum price needed to cover operating costs—than privately held companies. These lower breakeven prices are driven in part by higher-quality acreage holdings that yield higher volumes of oil and gas. The immense size of the public producers also gives them economies of scale that lower the cost of production.”

“The 12 firms with the most wells make up less than 1% of the companies, but they each operate from 10,000 to over 50,000 wells, producing an average of 39,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day per well. In contrast, 64% of all operators have 10 or fewer wells, which are nearly all stripper wells, producing less than 15 barrels of oil equivalent per day.”

     The Appalachian and Permian regions are where private companies have the highest share of companies and the lowest share of production. As I suggested above, the Haynesville is the only region where private companies produce more than public companies; in this case, it is about 99% natural gas.  

“In the Haynesville, production is concentrated among the largest private producers. The top five private natural gas operators alone produced 38%, or 5.8 billion cubic feet per day, of the region's natural gas output.”

     

 

References:

 

Public companies produce most U.S. crude oil and natural gas. Energy Information Administration. September 22, 2026. Public companies produce most U.S. crude oil and natural gas - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)