The U.S.’s Permian Basin is looking like Saudi Arabia, with as much as 1 million barrels of spare oil capacity ready to go into production, according to Nansen Saleri, former head of reservoir management at Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest crude exporter.

Oil producers in the Permian Basin have at least a combined 500,000 barrels a day of idle oil production capacity, according to Saleri, who is now chief executive officer of Houston-based consultant Quantum Reservoir Impact. Saudi Arabia’s spare capacity is about 1.5 million barrels a day, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico is the engine for U.S. shale production and acquisitions, helping to increase U.S. output to more than [read more]