From Oil & Gas Journal:
WoodMac: Eagle Ford 2013 spending to reach $28 billion
Wood Mackenzie Ltd. calculates oil and gas companies will spend $28 billion in the South Texas Eagle Ford play during 2013.
Callan McMahon, WoodMac upstream analyst, said the anticipated Eagle Ford growth will concentrated on counties having crude oil and condensate exposure.
“The pace of growth in the Eagle Ford shale shows no sign of slowing down, and our analysis indicates that Gonzalez, DeWitt, and Karnes counties have established themselves as the sweet spots of the play, and now account for over 50% of daily liquids production,” said McMahon.
The Eagle Ford is the second largest US tight oil play and ranks fifth in terms of US shale gas production. The Bakken formation in North Dakota is the top US unconventional oil producer.
Eagle Ford liquids production, including natural gas liquids, has increased from 100,000 b/d in early 2011 to 700,000 b/d currently.
For this year’s third quarter, Eagle Ford liquids and gas production averaged more than 1 million boe/d.
WoodMac attributed increased well productivity to both technology and experience. Depressed natural gas prices have prompted companies to continue diverting capital to liquid plays.
Meanwhile, midstream and service companies have invested in the Eagle Ford to capitalize on production growth, McMahon said.
The biggest three Eagle Ford operators are EOG Resources Inc., BHP Billiton Ltd., and ConocoPhillips, McMahon said, adding all three have moved to large-scale development in the play....MORE
Finding the sweet spots of the Eagle Ford
GONZALES COUNTY — The best spots in the Eagle Ford Shale play were a closely guarded secret a few years ago as oil and gas companies quietly leased thousands of acres.
Today, the word is out.
It’s spreading though corporate regulatory filings, word-of-mouth gossip and data tracked by everyone from industry analysts to government regulators.
Even though companies have largely locked in their acreage, an intense race to find the sweetest spots means that nearly as soon as an oil and gas company hits a good well, other companies cluster drilling rigs nearby — often within sight of each other — to try to replicate the results.
The roar of the truck traffic, the tedious lines at the convenience store or the roustabout’s dust-caked boots are a visible sign of what’s happening a mile or more below the surface as companies use horizontal fracturing to break open shale rock and release trapped hydrocarbons.
The counties inundated by the most workers and 18-wheelers are also the most profitable for oil and gas companies.
The Eagle Ford Shale reaches across 25 Texas counties. But more than 60 percent — 141 of the play’s 227 drilling rigs — are operating in five counties: La Salle, Karnes, McMullen, Gonzales and DeWitt, according to the Baker Hughes Rig Count, a barometer of the health of the drilling industry and an indicator of where companies are most interested in drilling
Rigs are clustering along the Gonzales-Karnes county line, and lining up across all of DeWitt County, except for the southeastern quadrant....MORE
