Eagle Ford Basin | June 2023
Field Overview
A heavy shale play, the Eagle Ford basin is located east of the Permian, stretching from Dallas to San Antonio. Primarily a gas play with smaller oil plays, it boasts proven reserves of 3.37 billion bbl of oil and 2.5 TCF of gas.
State Drilling Statistics
Active Drilling Rigs in Basin- 59 (
-1)
Total Rigs in Texas- 329 (-18)
Total Rigs in the United States- 675 (-7)
Total U.S. Rigs 10.7% YTD
Eagle Ford Top Producer
Top Producer- EOG Resources
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Basin Highlights
The Eagle Ford Shale: Even the Oil Woes are Bigger in Texas
Operators across the Eagle Ford currently book 6.5 billion barrels of oil, 5.7 billion barrels of natural gas liquids, and 45.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas as the cumulative reserves for the whole basin. Discussion is had about the water shortage in South Texas (exacerbated by the heavy demand for water from well completions), the 5.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide that the combustion of the Eagle Ford’s reserves would release, flaring, and various economic inefficiencies in the Eagle Ford.
Devon Energy and Murphy Oil have begun to recomplete oil wells in South Texas that received smaller, less efficient completions when they were first drilled. Devon has recompleted 30 wells in DeWitt County and has identified “several hundred” more candidates. This has increased the wells’ reserves by over 50%. Clay Gaspar, Devon’s COO and former CEO of WPX, explained that they identify understimulated wells in good rock, preferably with 5-½” casing. The larger production casing size allows for a liner to be run into the well, cemented, and recompleted evenly, as opposed to the “pump and pray” method where no mechanical isolation is used in recompletion. This often leads to an inefficient recompletion and marginal uplift in production.
Cavitation Technologies, a firm that “designs and manufactures innovative flow-through nanotechnology systems for fluid processing applications” announced its intent to purchase Eagle Ford Silica Sand, LLC for $20 million. Eagle Ford Silica Sand is a proppant producer in the Eagle Ford that controls 180 acres of land near San Antonio. The firm produces 2,000 metric tons per day and is capable of moving 8,000 metric tons per day. Each well in the area uses 11,000-13,000 tons of sand in completion. The firm consumes ~4,500 gallons of water per minute to mine and clean the sand.
Top Operators By Permit Approvals
| Rank | Company | Permits Approved |
| 1 | EOG | 32 |
| 2 | Marathon Oil | 8 |
| 3 | ConocoPhillips | 7 |
| 3 | Exxon | 7 |
| 3 | Trinity Operating | 7 |
Top Operators by Production
| Rank | Company | Monthly Oil Production (MBO) |
| 1 | EOG | 5,081 |
| 2 | ConocoPhillips | 4,109 |
| 3 | Marathon | 3,630 |
| 4 | Devon | 2,554 |
| 5 | Verdun Oil Company | 1,836 |
Rig Count
Texas Oil Production
Texas Gas Production
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