Anadarko's Eagle Ford Resource Estimate Swells to 600 mmboe

Anadarko Petroleum increased the number of identified Eagle Ford well locations to 4,000 and increased its resource estimate to 600 million barrels of oil equivalent.  That means total resource from the company's 400,000+ gross acres will stretch to more than 1 billion boe. Anadarko is partnered with KNOC across its Eagle Ford acreage. Anadarko also reached record production in the quarter. The company averaged more than 30,200 boe/d for an entire week. Sales volumes averaged 12,000 b/d of oil, 6,000 b/d of NGLs, and 59 mmcf/d of natural gas during the quarter.

The Brasada gas processing plant is also in service as of the first quarter. The plant has current capacity of 200 mmcf/d, but will have ultimate capacity of 455 mmcf/d when construction is completed in mid-2013.

Read more at our Anadarko Petroleum Eagle Ford Shale page.

Aurora Oil & Gas to Acquire Eureka Energy

Aurora Oil & Gas Eagle Ford Map
Aurora Oil & Gas Eagle Ford Map

Aurora Oil & Gas is bidding to add to its Eagle Ford position through a $107 million acquisition of Eureka Energy. Both are Australian companies that control non-operated acreage in the South Texas shale.

Eureka's assets include 24,743 gross (1,521 net) acres in the Sugarloaf Field in Karnes County.  Aurora has 24,033 gross (3,792 net) acres in the same area of the play. The acreage will add to Aurora's 76,989 gross (16,365 net) acres and increase the company's position to almost 18,000 net acres. The Sugarloaf field lies in the middle of the high rate condensate window of the Eagle Ford.

Marathon Oil operates assets in the area and Aurora expects drilling across the properties will double to as many as 150 wells in 2012.

You can read more about Aurora at www.auroraoag.com.au

Eagle Ford Rig Count Flat at 278 - April 27, 2012

Drilling Rig
Drilling Rig 9

The Eagle Ford Shale drilling rig count held flat at a record of 278 working units week over week. That means the month of April was the most active in the history of the Eagle Ford. An average of more than 274 rigs were running the entire month. The top 20 operators control almost exactly 80% of the rigs, with the top five running 47% of all rigs in the region.

Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Rigs

The natural gas directed count fell to 68 rigs this week. Future prices for Henry Hub were trading at $2.17/mmbtu as of Friday afternoon. That's a nice bump from last week, but that's largely due to contracts rolling into the next month.  Oil directed activity jumped three rigs to 210  and oil prices were trading at $104.50 per barrel (WTI) early in the afternoon.

A record 264 horizontal rigs are running in the region. Karnes County leads development with 44 rigs. La Salle (38),  McMullen (28),  Dimmit (27), Webb (27), DeWitt (26), Gonzales (25), Live Oak (12), and Frio and Zavala counties with 8 rigs each make up the top Eagle Ford counties.

Quarterly earnings reports started this week and we'll get even more news next week:

If you are headed to San Antonio/South Texas, visit our Eagle Ford Hotels page. We've negotiated discounted rates with hotels that are welcoming the Oil & Gas Industry.

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Drilling Rig Count by Operator

hat 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 formation. 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.

Drilling Rigs by County

Cabot Oil & Gas - Eagle Ford Down Spacing Success at 55-Acres

Cabot Oil & Gas' Eagle Ford acreage in the Buckhorn area of Frio and La Salle counties will likely be developed on 55-acre well spacing (or less). Two wells tested at 400 ft spacing between 5,900 ft laterals came on line at 790 boe/d. At lower spacing intervals, Cabot has 550-700 Eagle Ford locations in the Buckhorn area alone. That compares well to the previous seven development wells drilled in the Eagle Ford that came online at 860 boe/d. When compared to the average of all 30 wells Cabot has drilled, these were better. The company didn't attribute the improvement to any one factor, but better completion designs developed at the end of last year likely played a role.

This won't be the last time you hear about operational improvements from companies. Expect major efficiency gains in 2012. Operators are just beginning to hit their stride.

Check out the company's acreage map and read more about their position at Cabot's Eagle Ford page.

Kinder Morgan - KKR Announce Midstream Deal for Camino Real and Altamont Assets

Kinder Morgan is acquiring KKR's 50% interest in a joint-venture with El Paso that controls gathering and processing assets in Utah and the Eagle Ford Shale for $300 million. The deal is a precursor to the $20+ billion Kinder Morgan - El Paso acquisition that will close in May. At closing of both deals, Kinder will own 100% of the two systems. Both systems were in place to help gather and process El Paso's upstream oil and gas production in the areas. The Camino Real System in South Texas has capacity of 150 mmcf/d and 110,000 b/d. The Altamont system is larger and includes over 1,000 miles of pipelines, a processing plant, and a natural gas fractionator.

With over 1,100 miles of pipeline infrastructure, the Altamont system includes over 450 well connections with producers, and it operates a processing plant with the design capacity of 60 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) and a 5,600 barrel per day (Bpd) natural gas liquids fractionator. The Camino Real Gathering System has 150 MMcf/d of gas gathering capacity and 110,000 Bpd of oil gathering capacity.

Read the entire news release at kindermorgan.com