Forget about squinting into those computer screens for hours on end, and forget all the time and money you spent getting a master’s degree in geology or petroleum engineering. Forget trying to get up to speed on artificial intelligence and crunching big data. It’s better to be a truck driver. Put the pedal to the metal.

Reports are coming out of Midland-Odessa that a few truckers can earn up to $300,000 a year by hauling crude oil from the far reaches of the Permian Basin oil patch to the Gulf Coast. The sages of ancient history said that all roads lead to Rome; now they must lead to Corpus Christi or the Houston Ship Channel.

Wow. This might give some unemployed exploration geologists or engineers pause, especially if their company has withdrawn from the Gulf of Mexico.

A report from analysts at Simmons & Co. recently laid out the problem. Way ahead of schedule, the much-touted Permian Basin oil production ramp is already here, and based on producers’ first-quarter conference calls, that ramp is going to keep right on going up throughout the rest of this year, and likely beyond that.

To be sure, the midstream sector is scrambling to respond, but it hasn’t caught up yet—and it may not until second-half 2019, according to remarks by pipeline companies and estimates by midstream analysts. What’s more, some say that once it does catch up, the midstream will very soon thereafter be once again outpaced by more Permian oil production.

On its first-quarter conference call, as cited by Simmons, Plains All American Pipeline LP said, “Permian production currently is exceeding its internal forecasts (initial Permian growth expectation for this year was over 600,000 bbl/d). Initial 2018 corporate guidance included expectations of constrained takeaway capacity in 2H 2018/1H 2019. However, these constraints are materializing earlier than expected.”

Experts thought the Permian’s liquids output would increase by 600,000 bbl/d, to reach 3.5 million barrels per day (MMbbl/d) by December, when including NGL and condensate. (For reference, this is more than the production of Kuwait.)

“The rapid growth in Permian production has substantially filled all long-haul pipes sooner than anticipated which is leading to constraints in some of PAA’s Delaware Basin intra-basin pipelines.” (Emphasis by Simmons.)

Plains highlighted “the meaningful acceleration in completions activity in the Permian this year, noting that a subset of eight large E&Ps are increasing completions by about 33% in 2018 (to a total of 1,374 wells).”

So much for capital discipline.

It is no wonder that recently the basis blowout widened to $8 to $10/bbl for West Texas Intermediate against the price at the Cushing, Okla., hub.

The Simmons report mentioned that since early 2017, nine oil or NGL pipeline expansions and newbuilds have been announced with several open seasons underway. Oddly, two were just recently canceled, according to Simmons: Buckeye Partners LP’s South Texas Gateway Pipeline to Corpus Christi, which would have moved an additional 600,000 bbl/d; and Magellan Midstream Partners’ Permian to Corpus line that would have moved a like amount.

Buckeye’s terminal in Corpus was recently modified to allow it to berth the big Suezmax class vessels, enabling an incremental 1 MMbbl of oil to be exported each month from the terminal.

If pipelines will soon be full, trucking oil is the answer, but that is no slam dunk. “The only trucks available that PAA knows about have a capacity of about 180 barrels. Plains believes this will help move some of the excess, but is not a sufficient solution to clear the market.”

Simmons also cited executives at Phillips 66 Co., who mentioned the issues with trucks, estimating a cost of $12/bbl. “You’d need 100 trucks to move 10,000 barrels a day (bbl/d). It’s not realistic to expect to move 100,000 to 200,000 bbl/d. It’s just not really practical.”

Multiply that number by Permian production of around 3.5 MMbbl/d and you see the problem—or the opportunity if you happen to have your commercial driver’s license.

The Permian has indeed become the big elephant in the room now, its clout being cited in the halls of Saudi Aramco and in other OPEC offices, as well as in other non-OPEC countries, and in Washington, D.C.

Surprisingly, this was even a frequent topic at Hart Energy’s recent DUG Rockies conference in Denver. E&P speakers and analysts touted the immense potential and growing production out of the stacked pays found in the Bakken, Niobrara and soon, the Powder River Basin—but they almost always showed a chart in their presentations that compared those plays to the Permian.

Forgive me, but these all stack up nicely.

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