Two percent of US oil and gas producers account for 68% of output

Serguey Asael Shinder24 September 2026, 19:451 min read

Publicly traded companies made up just 2% of roughly 12,000 companies producing crude oil and natural gas in the United States in 2025, and produced 68% of the crude oil and natural gas in the Lower 48 states, according to an in-brief analysis published by the US Energy Information Administration on 22 September 2026. The underlying data comes from Enverus, and production is counted in barrels of oil equivalent.

What it means

The shape of that distribution matters more than the headline. A market where 240 companies produce two thirds of the volume responds to capital discipline announcements, quarterly guidance and shareholder pressure, because the decisions that move national output are taken in a small number of boardrooms that all report to the same investors.

It also means the remaining 11,760 producers are largely invisible in aggregate forecasts while collectively owning a third of supply - and they are the ones least able to absorb a price trough or a regulatory change.