The US Geological Survey (USGS) says it has found the largest continuous oil and gas deposit ever discovered in the United States.
On Tuesday, the USGS announced that a swath of West Texas known as the Wolfcamp shale contains 20 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
That is nearly three times more petroleum than the agency found in North Dakota's Bakken shale in 2013.
"Changes in technology and industry practices can have significant effects on what resources are technically recoverable, and that's why we continue to perform resource assessments throughout the United States and the world," a program coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program, Walter Guidroz, said.
"Even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more," he added.
