Enno Peters
This is an older blog post, you will find one on more recent data here
This interactive presentation contains the latest oil & gas production data from all 22,019 horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford region, that started producing since 2008, through November.
Oil production in the Eagle Ford during 2018 stayed within a few percent of the 1.3 million bo/d level set in December 2017, and I expect that to hold also after upcoming upward revisions. Through November, operators completed 10% more wells than in the same period in 2017.
Well productivity hasn’t changed much in the past year, as you can easily see in the bottom graph of the ‘Well quality’ tab.
All leading operators were off their peak production in November (see ‘Top operators’), although EOG & ConocoPhillips only marginally so.
The ‘Advanced Insights’ presentation is displayed below:
In this “Ultimate Recovery” overview, the relationship between production rates and cumulative production is revealed. Wells are grouped by the year in which production started.
So far most oil has been recovered by the 4,465 wells that started in 2014; they are now at 155 thousand barrels of oil and at a flow rate of 31 bo/d, on average. Newer wells are on a path to recover about 30 thousand barrels of oil more once they hit the same level.
We have seen quite some interest in the Austin Chalk formation in this area. Production is increasing, although from a small base. This screenshot, from our advanced analytics service, compares the performance of wells in the Austin Chalk and the Eagle Ford, for the 2015-2017 vintages, with only oil wells selected.
Austin Chalk vs. Eagle Ford
Clearly, recent Austin Chalk wells are outperforming those in the Eagle Ford.
Early next week we will have a post covering data from 10 states in the US.
Production data is subject to revisions, especially for the last few months.
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 above presentations 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.
News, trends and data for the US upstream industry
Novi Energy Newsletter
3 Comments
I have two observations from S. Texas about this EF update; one, longer laterals and bigger frac’s cost more money and for 30K BO of lagniappe, so to speak, its not economically worth it. Word on the street is that up-sizing and frac downsizing is now the new hope, that and $90 oil. Product prices are better in the EF than the other three basins, acreage positions mature and many leases have some pretty good NRI’s. Nevertheless take home pay per BO in the EF suggests 225K BO UR’s will NOT pay back most wells. I have a bet with a friend of mine as to what percentage of EF wells drilled in the play since 2009 will actually payout; his estimate of 38% is way too high. I’ll win the bet.
There are some monster Chalk wells in S. Texas that result in incredible IP’s. Some of EOG’s Chalk are pretty awesome for recovery to date, so awesome they are skewing the data a little. But you do not want to be standing behind the decline of an Austin Chalk well as you will get sucked plum off your feet in the vacuum. This is fractured carbonate, not dense shale, and when they go, they’re gone. Good chalk wells will not pay for the many really stinky ones.
Terrific stuff, Enno! Gracias !
Thank you for your comment Mike!
The Austin Chalk has the name “devil’s chalk” in the history already. A good book to read is “Gamble in the Devil’s Chalk” by Caleb Pirtle III. There, Ray Hollyfield drilled the world’s first 300 feet lateral oil well.