Eagle Ford – Another amazing oil field to watch

There’s an astounding increase in oil and gas production from the Eagle Ford region in Texas in the last 15 months.  That field starts north of Laredo and runs to the northeast.

Key tidbits from this post by Energy Information AdministrationEagle Ford oil and natural gas well starts rose sharply in first quarter 2012:

  • Operators started drilling (spudded) 856 new wells in January through March 2012 compared to 407 in January through March 2011.
  • In early April 2012, the Eagle Ford active rig count set a new high of 217 units.
  • Increased drilling and rig deployment translated into higher crude oil and condensate production, which is projected to average over 500 thousand barrels per day (bbl/d) in April, up from 182 thousand bbl/d in April 2011.
  • Horizontal wells accounted for nearly all of the new well starts so far in 2012.
  • Bentek estimates that in March 2012, Eagle Ford crude oil and lease condensate production was approaching crude oil production in the North Dakota part of the Bakken formation.

A few of my comments –

  • Doubling the number of new wells in first quarter of ’12 compared to prior year.
  • About as many rigs running in Eagle Ford (217) as in North Dakota.
  • Production in April 2012 likely to catch up to where N.D. production was late in 2011.
  • Most of the new production is from fracking.

Here is a visualization of the wells in the Eagle Ford area. Can’t figure out how to insert the visual, so you need to click the link.

EagleFord.gif

Watch for the radical increase in production in 2011. Keep an eye on the graph of production in the bottom right corner.  Watch it go from minimal until mid 2009, then rise to about 40,000 BOE/day at end of 2010 and then go straight up to around 170,000 BOE at the end of 2011.  Above comment indicates it could triple to 500,000 per day about now (April).

Astounding.

By the way, nice visualization tool.

I previously discussed Bakken field production here, here, here, and here.

As amazing as the Bakken may be, it is only one of many places in the U.S. where oil and gas production is expanding at an astounding rate. Think of it – between just the Bakken and Eagle Ford fields, 1 million barrels a day (and accelerating!) compared to minimal production 2 or 3 years ago.

Astounding.

(hat tip – Carpe Diem, of course.)

Update 11-12-13: glanced at this again today while looking for something else. I chuckled at  me “finding” the Eagle Ford story in April ’12 after the boom had been underway for a long time. I’m slowly catching up to the rest of the world.

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