Eagle Ford – update through April 2023

This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from all 28,920 horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford region, that have started producing from 2008 onward, through April 2023.

Total production

Tight oil production in the Eagle Ford came in at about 1.1 million b/d in April 2023 (after upcoming revisions, horizontal wells only). April data is only currently available for 90% of the wells, which explains the apparent drop you’re seeing for April in the chart above. Natural gas production for that month was about 6.6 Bcf/d.

In the first 3 months of this year, almost 10% more horizontal wells came online compared with the same period last year (379 vs 347).

Drilling Activity

However, since the steep fall in hydrocarbon pricing in the 2nd half of last year, drilling activity is falling again and as of last week, 58 rigs were drilling horizontal wells. This was down from 74 rigs less than a year ago (source: Baker Hughes), which constitutes the biggest percentage decline among the 3 major US shale basins:

Well performance

Next to declining drilling activity, another negative factor impacting production in the basin is falling well productivity as noted in earlier posts:

In the top chart you can find that on a normalized basis (by lateral foot instead of by well) the Eagle Ford has seen the steepest decline in well productivity in recent years, and average well performance is now almost back where it was 10 years ago, despite a strong increase in proppant loadings (bottom chart) during that period.

Horizontal oil wells completed in recent years in the central part of the basin are now trending towards an EUR of around 300 thousand barrels of oil:

Permit activity

The following overview displays which operators have been most active in getting permits for new horizontal wells approved in the Eagle Ford so far this year:

EOG, the top producer in this basin, which operates about 170 thousand barrels of oil per day, is in the lead with 112 approved permits for new horizontal wells this year through June 30th.

Grit Oil & Gas, a newcomer to the basin, is the surprising number 2, with 91 approved permits. As you can find in the “Top operators” tab of the interactive presentation at the start of this post, it has greatly ramped up drilling and completion in the past year, and is now the 9th largest producer.

Finally

Production and completion data is subject to revisions, especially for the last few months.

Sources

For this presentation, I used data gathered from the following sources:

• Texas RRC. Production data is provided on lease level. Individual well production data is estimated from a range of data sources, including regular well tests, and pending lease reports.
• FracFocus.org

Brief manual

The presentations above have many interactive features:

• You can click through the blocks on the top to see the slides.
• Each slide has filters that can be set, e.g. to select individual or groups of operators. You can first click “all” to deselect all items. You have to click the “apply” button at the bottom to enforce the changes. After that, click anywhere on the presentation.
• Tooltips are shown by just hovering the mouse over parts of the presentation.
• You can move the map around, and zoom in/out.
• By clicking on the legend you can highlight the related data.
• Note that filters have to be set for each tab separately.
• The operator who currently owns the well is designated by “operator (current)”. The operator who operated a well in a past month is designated by “operator (actual)”. This distinction is useful when the ownership of a well changed over time.
• If you have any questions on how to use the interactivity, or how to analyze specific questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Key Takeaways

• Tight oil production in the Eagle Ford averaged about 1.1 million b/d in April 2023 from horizontal wells, with April data currently covering about 90% of wells.
• Natural gas production in the Eagle Ford was about 6.6 Bcf/d in April 2023.
• In Q1 2023, 379 horizontal wells came online in the Eagle Ford, up from 347 in Q1 2022.
• Baker Hughes data shows the Eagle Ford horizontal rig count fell to 58 rigs last week from 74 rigs less than a year earlier.
• On a per-lateral-foot basis, Eagle Ford well productivity has declined steeply in recent years and is nearly back to 10-year-ago levels despite higher proppant loadings.
• Horizontal oil wells completed since 2017 in the Central Eagle Ford subbasin are trending toward an EUR of around 300 thousand barrels of oil.
• EOG led Eagle Ford permit activity with 112 approved permits for new horizontal wells through June 30, while producing about 170 thousand b/d.
• Grit Oil & Gas ranked second with 91 approved permits through June 30 and is now the 9th largest producer after ramping drilling and completion over the past year.