Eagle Ford – update through October 2021

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 26,546 horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford region, that have started producing from 2008 onward, through October.

Total production

Tight oil production in the Eagle Ford fell to 1.05 million b/d in October, the lowest output since March 2021 (Hz. wells only, after upcoming revisions). Natural gas production was close to the annual high, at 5.8 Bcf/d.

Supply projection

With the continued increase in drilling activity, it is no longer only the Permian Basin for which we foresee a growth in output. As of last week, 53 rigs were drilling horizontal wells in the Eagle Ford, the highest number in almost 2 years (according to Baker Hughes). If this level would not change (unlikely), we project a small production increase in the months and years to come, assuming constant well/rig productivity. From our Supply Projection dashboard:

However, can we assume a constant level of well productivity?

Well performance

The following overview shows the location and performance of all the horizontal oil wells in the core of the Eagle Ford (Gonzales, Karnes and DeWitt):

The chart on the right side plots the average oil production rate against cumulative oil production. It reveals that in this area, the 2017 vintage has so far performed best: the 627 horizontal oil wells that began production in 2017 recovered just above 250 thousand barrels of oil before falling below 50 b/d, on average, while newer vintages are falling just shy of that figure.

Top operators

The output and well locations of the 10 largest operators in the basin are displayed in the final tab. EOG’s production in October fell near the lowest level in 8 years.

Finally

Our next post will be on all 13 covered states in the US.

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.

Enno Peters

Enno Peters is General Manager at Novi, where he has build an AI-driven data & analytics platform tailored for oil & gas operators and energy investors. Prior to Novi, Enno founded ShaleProfile which was acquired by Novi late 2021.