Eagle Ford Shale: Where is the activity?
The Eagle Ford Shale Play has been gaining attention over the last six months
due to gas, gas/condensate and oil discoveries with good producing rates. It isn’t uncommon to hear “Haynesville” uttered in the same breath, and that has many companies excited.
About the Eagle Ford
Major Players
Lease Activity
Deviated Wells in the Eagle Ford
Click here to download this newsletter as a PDF.About the Eagle Ford
The Eagle Ford is named for the town of Eagle Ford, Texas near Dallas, where the shale outcrops. However, the current producing area for the play is south Texas in the counties of Webb, Dimmit, La Salle, McMullen, Live Oak, Bee, Goliad, Karnes, De Witt, Lavaca and Colorado. Geologists consider the Eagle Ford the source rock for the Austin Chalk and Edwards formations.
Not Technically "New"
Of course, the Eagle Ford Shale isn’t new; this passage comes from a 1978 World Oil article on the then expanding Austin Chalk play:
“The Eagle Ford Shale is full of oil in most locations in the eastern group of South Texas counties in the Austin Chalk trend. It is a fractured, brittle, often micaceous and fossiliferous black shale with occasional recrystallized, oil-carrying dolomite streaks as much as 10-20 feet thick.”
At the time the assessment continued that, “there have been some recent completions in Frio County, although, by itself, it (Eagle Ford) could not be considered a target. Taken with the Austin and Buda, it is an interesting additional zone” (P. 58, “World Oil,” Feb. 1, 1978)
Major Players in the Eagle Ford
Much has changed since 1978 in drilling technology as well as technology to make shales a viable, if not significant, play. Leasing activity and lease position suggests companies positioning themselves as the magnitude of this play are determined:
- Petrohawk Energy: The Houston-based E&P company was one of the first in the area. From what COO Dick Stoneburner revealed in the company’s Q2 conference call, Petrohawk is excited about the early results from its so-called “Hawkville Field.” Petrohawk drilled six wells in the quarter and completed three. That makes eight Petrohawk wells in the Eagle Ford.
- Rosetta Resources has roughly 35,000 net acres with two horizontal wells in the area. President and CEO Randy Limbacher recently called the leasing situation in the Eagle Ford “extremely competitive.”
- Swift Energy is planning its first horizontal well in the Eagle Ford and is also considering a strategic joint venture to speed up development in the area.
- ConocoPhillips has 300,000 acres under net lease, but isn’t saying much about its prospects in the Eagle Ford.
- Anadarko Petroleum has six wells in the Eagle Ford, and a representative said recently the company is “very encouraged.”
- Apache Corp. has 450,000 acres in the area, but isn’t drilling right now.
- Other companies with land positions and/or drilling activity in the area include Antares Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources and St. Mary Land & Exploration to name a few.
Lease Activity in the Eagle Ford
P2 Energy Solutions has seen an increase in requests for lease activity data in the Eagle Ford Shale, another factor showing that the area could be “the next big thing” in shale plays.
One of the many resources P2 Energy Solutions offers in the Eagle Ford area is our Tobin Digital Lease Update product. Subscribing to this product gives you all the information you need to know about who’s leasing in a particular area.
Here is the lease activity in the Eagle Ford since December of 2008:
(click for a larger picture)
You can see that right now the hot counties are Karnes, DeWitt and Colorado.
By subscribing to the Tobin Digital Lease Updates product, you’ll receive key information about who’s leasing where, giving your land department an accurate competitive view of the area.
Leases are represented by polygons mapped to our Tobin SuperBase survey product, with smaller leases assigned a point.
Deviated Wells and Directional Well Survey Data in the Eagle Ford
P2 Energy Solutions also offers the best directional well survey data available in the industry today for the Eagle Ford Shale. These are estimates of how many wells have deviations of 150’ or more in each county:
(click for a larger picture)
Without accurate directional well survey data, interpretations based on unstandardized directional surveys could lead to wells being drilled in incorrect locations, potentially missing areas of geologic fracturing. For more information about the benefits of directional well survey data, read our February and July Tobin Monthly editions.
In addition to the above products, P2 Energy Solutions offers several more data layers for the set of Eagle Ford counties that will help you gain a competitive advantage in this shale play of growing importance.
P2 Energy Solutions’ Custom GIS Mapping department can also create maps with the specifications your company requires in the Eagle Ford area. We have made:
- Maps of competitor lease hold positions, with competitor polygons labeled by expiration date
- Lease hold expiration and open acreage map featuring Tobin survey, leases, ownership and well data
- Tobin well and lease recent activity map featuring permitted and completed wells in the last 12 months, as well as previously existing oil and gas wells
For more information and a free assessment on any of our Tobin Map Data products, contact us through our easy online form at http://info.p2es.com/tobin or call our Inside Sales department at 800-365-4484.
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