TexCom's Eagle Ford Environmental Services Adding Disposal Well

TexCom's Eagle Ford Environmental Services, LLC is adding a wastewater disposal well in Atascosa County, TX. All environmental services in the Eagle Ford will continue to expand as drilling activity grows across the play. More disposal wells will be needed to handle the growing volumes of flow-back fluids and produced water. 

TexCom, Inc. (pinksheets:TEXC), today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Eagle Ford Environmental Services, LLC has acquired an injection well and permit to operate a liquid disposal site in Atascosa County, Texas. Purchased from Manti Premier Waste Disposal, LP, the site will serve as the foundation to provide Class II non-hazardous oilfield waste disposal services to E&P companies operating in the Eagle Ford Shale, a prolific oil and gas producing region in South Texas.

With a completed injection well and the required permit already in place, the proposed new TexCom disposal site is ideally located adjacent to Highway 16, 18 miles south of Jourdanton, Texas and three miles north of McMullen County. The company plans to commence construction of the surface facilities immediately. Lou Ross, Chairman and CEO of TexCom, noted, "This new disposal site will position TexCom right in the heart of the Eagle Ford shale play and we should begin to see impacts from this site in the 4th Quarter of 2011."

Read the full press release at marketwatch.com

Loreto Resources - Eagleford Energy Reach Joint Venture Agreement

Loreto Resources and Eagleford Energy have come to an agreement on a potential joint venture. Loreto will have the opportunity to earn a 50% working interest on two leases in Zavala County, TX. In Petrohawk's Q2 conference call, the company announced it was suspending drilling operations at Red Hawk in favor of other producing areas. Read more in our post titled: Petrohawk Abandons the Red Hawk Field. Watch to see if Loreto Resources and Eagleford Energy are able to make a commercial play in Zavala County. Secondary formations such as the Austin Chalk and Buda may become the primary drilling targets.

Loreto Resources Corporation (OTC: LRTC) ("Loreto") today announced that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent with Eagleford Energy Inc. ("Eagleford"), under which Loreto would have the right to farm in to an up to 50% working interest in Eagleford's net working interests in the Matthews Lease and the Murphy Lease in Zavala County, Texas. Key highlights of the letter of intent are as follows:

• Farm-in agreement would cover 5,266 gross acres in the Eagle Ford light oil shale play in the Maverick Basin.
• Drill results on both leases indicate potential for significant volumes of recoverable light oil in the Eagle Ford Shale, Austin Chalk and Buda formations based on core samples, log analysis and analogue modeling by Weatherford International.
• The Matthews Lease is contiguous to the Petrohawk Energy Corporation Red Hawk Land Block, which has shown average initial production rates per well from wells targeting only the Eagle Ford Shale of 375 barrels of oil per day, according to Petrohawk.
• Accelerated work program currently anticipated to include (i) the completion, fracturing and tie in of the Matthews/Dyami #1-H horizontal test well with up to a 15 stage fracture stimulation utilizing a Baker Hughes shot point sleeve, (ii) drilling of a second vertical well on the Murphy Lease which is currently drilling; and (iii) the fracturing, tie in and completion of two Murphy vertical wells.

Read the full press release at prnewswire.com

Eagle Ford Shale Rig Count - August 12, 2011

Drilling Rig

This week the Eagle Ford Shale rig count is up four rigs to 233 active drilling rigs. The number of natural gas rigs working increased by two to 106 working, while the oil rig count jumped from 124 active rigs to 126. One rig is drilling a storage well in Milam County, TX. Horizontal rigs account for 205 of the 233 rigs drilling in the South Texas region. Even with the stock market fluctuating, activity has held strong. If the commodity markets stay down, expect the rig count to lag by at least a few weeks and up to three months. Often drilling contracts are in place for multiple wells and operators don't have the ability to slam on the brakes at a moments notice.

In another week of earnings releases, we had several companies detail well performance in targets that are secondary to the Eagle Ford. Gastar's EagleBine wells disappointed, but there were positive results in Goodrich Petroleum's Buda Lime well tests and Swift Energy's Olmos success has added a prolific secondary drilling target. Rosetta Resources announced it will test 50-acre spacing in an early attempt to establish full downspacing potential in the Eagle Ford. The Eagle Ford Job Market is hot, but it risks being cooled off by a lack of water. Concerns are being raised as South Texas experiences the second worst drought on record.

Stay tuned each week for an update on the South Texas rig count. Better yet, Subscribe by RSS.

Drilling Rig Count by County

What is the Rig Count?

The Eagle Ford Shale Rig Count is an index of the total number of oil & gas drilling rigs running across a 30 county area in South Texas. The South Texas rigs referred to in this article are for ALL drilling reported by SmithBits and not solely wells targeting the Eagle Ford Shale.

All land rigs and onshore rig data shown here are based upon industry estimates provided by the Baker Hughes Rig Count and/or Smith Service Co's (Schlumberger) Smith Rig Count.

Hotels in Short Supply Across the Eagle Ford

Hotels, motels, RV parks, and rental properties are full to the brim in South Texas. Eagle Ford Shale oil workers have flooded the area and left almost no bed empty. Rates have doubled and all indicators point to this being the early stages of  major real estate investment across South Texas. San Antonio and other major cities in the region will likely see the most new development.

With drilling activity on fire across the Eagle Ford Shale, workers have snapped up virtually every hotel room in the 24-county area. Rates have doubled at properties across the oil-and-gas play, and roughnecks have spilled into RV parks and lodging as far north as the Alamo City.

Read the full news release at bizjournals.com

Carrizo Springs TX Population Sees Eagle Ford Boom

Carrizo Springs added almost 3,000 people as the Eagle Ford Shale has taken off. The oil & gas industry has made a major call on resources and created thousands of jobs across South Texas. In areas that experience a boom, like we are in the Eagle Ford, it can take a couple of years for infrastructure and the tax rolls to catch up.

Once sleepy South Texas towns are finding themselves wide awake, caught in the whirlwind of an oil boom.

Residents of Carrizo Springs, formerly a town of just fewer than 6,000 people, are finding empty store shelves and crowded streets that are crumbling under the weight of nearly 3,000 newcomers.

The growth comes courtesy of the development of the Eagle Ford Shale deposit, which has been billed as the next big oil and natural gas play in Texas.

"Like with any growth, there's growing pains," said Dimmit County Commissioner Mike Uriega. "Our infrastructure has been affected; our roads are being torn up."

Read the entire press release at ksat.com