Nevada is home to the Chainman Shale formation, which sits primarily in the eastern central region of Nevada within the Big Sand Spring Valley. The formation contains both oil and gas and covers about 20 million acres.

Nevada continues to be considered a frontier state for oil exploration with 15 small oil fields in three areas of the state (Pine Valley in northern Eureka County, Railroad Valley in northeastern Nye County, and Deadman Creek in Elko County). Since 1907, about 750 wells have been drilled.

Data source: EIA. bpd = barrels per day. Meanwhile, the bulk of the country’s shale oil production comes from just four states: Texas, North Dakota, Colorado, and Wyoming….

Data are cumulative impacts since 2005, except where noted.

• Arkansas. 6,496.
• California. 3,405.
• Colorado. 22,615.
• Louisiana. 2,883.
• New Mexico. 4,318.
• North Dakota. 8,224.
• Ohio. 1,594.
• Oklahoma. 7,421.

Nevada is not usually thought of as an oil-producing state but exploration for oil, which began 80 years ago, has been successful to a degree during the past 35 years, and oil fields in two valleys in interior Nevada are presently producing oil.

In 2019, annual production was 267,000 barrels, less than 0.01% of U.S. total crude oil production. Nevada has one crude oil refinery.

Fracking has been documented in more than 30 U.S. states and is particularly widespread in North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Texas. And it’s expanding into new areas, making states like California, New Mexico and Nevada increasingly threatened by a potential fracking boom.

2017, https://oursantaferiver.org/fracking-the-everglades/. As of 2018, according to the Environmental Information Administration, Florida has 39 gas producing wells and most of the natural gas production comes from the Jay field in the Florida panhandle.

There are more than 900,000 active oil and gas wells in the United States, and more than 130,000 have been drilled since 2010, according to Drillinginfo, a company that provides data and analysis to the drilling industry.