Can 20 Billion Barrels of Oil Ignite Growth for These 4 Oil Stocks?

Everything is bigger in Texas. That was the message sent by the U.S. Geological Survey late last year when it announced that the Wolfcamp Shale Formation in West Texas' Permian Basin holds an estimated 20 billion barrels of oil. It's the largest continuous oil formation the agency has ever assessed in the United States.

The agency admitted that it likely holds even more than that, actually, since the estimate only included the portion of the Wolfcamp shale that extends into the Midland Basin. It also spans into the Delaware Basin. In a bit of Russian doll categorization, both the Midland Basin and Delaware Basin are subsets of the Permian Basin, which part of the vocabulary of most energy investors by now.

In the last 12 months, the Midland Basin and Delaware Basin may have been added to your vocabulary, too. Many oil stocks have purchased acreage in the unconventional plays and are counting on them to drive future production gains. A few have sold off all other assets to focus exclusively on the basin. Whoah.

Source: Fool.com