U.S. Energy Secretary Wright says New Mexico has ‘room to grow’ amid oil, gas boom

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The secretary’s tour touts record-breaking domestic oil and gas production during Trump’s second term, thanks largely to production in the Permian Basin, which covers southwestern New Mexico and west Texas. 

In 2025, the Permian Basin produced 6.6 million barrels per day of crude oil, comprising 48% of total U.S. oil production. Lea County, where Wright visited Tuesday, produces the most crude oil of any county in the Permian Basin.

Wright’s visit comes amid high oil prices resulting from the Iran war that have sent oil prices to nearly $100 per barrel. The price increase has resulted in a windfall in revenues to state coffers, recently projected to be roughly $850 million. 

Wright said the state should wear its oil-producing status as a “badge of pride,” and that the state’s remaining oil reserves present opportunity for “a lot of room to grow,” especially if the state joins the federal government in quickly approving permits for oil and gas drilling operations. 

Since Trump’s second term began, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has typically taken less than 90 days to issue permits for various oil and gas extraction efforts, Wright said Tuesday. That’s down from more than a year during President Joe Biden’s term, he said. 

Wright visited a facility that Mewbourne Oil Company owns near Hobbs. Republican Greg Cunningham, who is currently running against incumbent U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) for the 2nd Congressional District seat, also attended. He told Source NM he was there to “listen and learn” about how oil companies operate and how better to support them if elected to Congress. 

It’s unclear who invited Cunningham to the tour. Mewbourne CEO Kenneth Waits said the DOE invited Cunningham; DOE spokesperson Ben Dietderich told Source NM that the company invited the congressional candidate. 

Gov touts New Mexico’s lower methane numbers, but state still falling short on 2030 climate goal

Cunningham did not immediately respond to Source NM’s request for comment. 

In a response to a query from Source NM, Vasquez’s campaign spokesperson Patricia Socarras Santiago said Vasquez was not invited to the event. “While Greg was cozying up with the MAGA Administration, Gabe spent the last few days in Carlsbad, Alamogordo, and Silver City talking to New Mexicans about the uphill battle they’re facing in Trump’s tanking economy,” she said in a statement.

During the tour, Wright heard from company leaders about their operations, including how they’ve adapted to recent state laws aimed at reducing methane emissions. The privately held company is among the largest Permian Basin oil producers and extracts roughly 300,000 barrels of crude a day, CEO Kenneth Waits said Tuesday. 

Company leaders showed Wright a series of separating tanks and technology they said they use to separate gas, water and oil and divert them into separate pipelines. Waits said the company has reduced its methane emissions 81% over the past four years and currently captures 99.8% of all the methane produced in its oil-drilling operations. 

The 0.2% of “excess” is flared into the atmosphere, which happened periodically during the roughly two-hour tour Friday. 

Mewbourne in 2023 faced a $5.5 million fine from the United States Department of Justice under the federal Clean Air Act and New Mexico state law, along with a settlement agreement that government officials said would result in 1,300 fewer tons of methane released annually into the atmosphere.

The company did not admit to wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement. 

In addition to drastically increasing its rate of methane capture in recent years, Waits also touted the use of a LiDAR emissions tracking system called LONGPATH, which continuously monitors sites for leaks and alerts company officials when one occurs. 

Wright’s visit to Mewbourne followed a tour of the Urenco uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, as well as a visit Monday to another oil facility in Midland, Texas.