Oil and Gas

Map showing location of U.S. facilities in this sector; please click on the map to see a larger version.

Sector Profile
Performance Data and Trends for this Sector
EPA Sector Strategies Activities
Resources

Sector Profile

The Oil and Gas sector includes the oil and gas extraction industry as well as petroleum refining. The United States is the world's third-largest petroleum producer, with more than 500,000 producing wells and approximately 4,000 oil and natural gas platforms operating in U.S. waters. Together, oil and gas supply 65 percent of U.S. energy. The nation's 144 refineries process more than 17 million barrels of crude oil every day. Oil and gas production facilities include 16,000 establishments with a value of shipments of $134 billion.

Industries in the oil and gas extraction industry operate and/or develop oil and gas field properties. Such activities may include exploration for crude petroleum and natural gas; drilling, completing, and equipping wells; operating separators, emulsion breakers, desilting equipment, and field gathering lines for crude petroleum and natural gas; and all other activities in the preparation of oil and gas up to the point of shipment from the producing property. The petroleum refining industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in refining crude petroleum into refined petroleum. Petroleum refining involves one or more of the following activities: fractionation; straight distillation of crude oil; and cracking.

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Performance Data and Trends for this Sector

You can find data and trends for this sector in the Oil and Gas chapter of the most recent Sector Strategies Performance Report.

The Petroleum Refining chapter in the report, Energy Trends in Selected Manufacturing Sectors: Opportunities and Challenges for Environmentally Preferable Energy Outcomes (PDF) (10 pp, 296K, About PDF), outlines the trends and opportunities in energy use of this aspect of the Oil and Gas sector.

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EPA Sector Strategies Activities

The oil and gas exploration and refining industry is working with EPA's Sector Strategies Program on new ways to improve its environmental performance. Given that population growth and energy consumption continues to increase, exploring opportunities with the oil and gas industry provides the program with the potential to assist in the facilitation of new energy production while strengthening the industry's environmental sustainability.

Rocky Mountain Region Oil & Gas Case Study

An Assessment of the Environmental Implications of Oil and Gas Production: A Regional Case Study (PDF) (115 pp, 2.3 MB, About PDF) is a working draft that provides an overview of emerging oil and gas exploration and production issues in the Mountain West. Released in 2008, this report is a resource for agency and industry decision makers charged with assessing, responding to, and preventing oil and gas sector impacts. In addition, the report addresses several state, regional, and national initiatives to advance responsible oil and gas production.

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Resources

Trade Associations

The Sectors Strategies Program is working with the American Petroleum Institute (API), the American Exploration and Production Council (AXPC), and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA). Collectively, these organizations represent the full spectrum of oil and gas operations–from exploration and production to refining and distribution.

American Petroleum Institute API is a national trade association representing all aspects of America's oil and natural gas industry. API's 400 corporate members, from the largest major oil company to the smallest of independents, come from all segments of the industry. They are producers, refiners, suppliers, pipeline operators and marine transporters, as well as service and supply companies that support all segments of the industry.

Representative:
Khary Cauthen, Washington Representative
1220 L Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005-4070
Tel: 202-682-8209
E-mail: Khary Cauthen (cauthenk@api.org)

American Exploration and Production Council AXPC is a national trade association representing 24 of the largest independent natural gas and crude oil exploration and production companies in the U.S. AXPC members are "independent" in the sense that that they do not have petroleum refining or retail marketing operations and therefore are not "integrated." They are generally publicly traded corporations. The AXPC companies as a group produce more than 40 percent of the natural gas in the United States, and account for approximately one-fifth of the country's domestic oil production.

Representative:
William F. Whitsitt, President
101 Constitution Ave., NW
Suite 800 West
Washington, DC 20001-2133
Tel: 202-742-4300
E-mail: William F. Whitsitt (wfwhitsitt@aol.com)

Independent Petroleum Association of America IPAA is a national trade association that has represented independent oil and natural gas producers for three-quarters of a century. Today, IPAA represents the thousands of independent oil and natural gas producers and service companies across the United States. Independent producers develop 90 percent of domestic oil and gas wells, produce 68 percent of domestic oil and produce 82 percent of domestic natural gas. IPAA also operates in close cooperation with 44 unaffiliated independent national, state and regional associations, which together represent thousands of royalty owners and the companies that provide services and supplies to the domestic industry.

Representative:
Lee Fuller, Vice President of Government Relations
1201 15th Street, NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: 202-857-4799
E-mail: Lee Fuller (lfuller@ipaa.org)