Eagle Ford Drilling & Completion Report

September 12, 2016 Elizabeth Alford

**Eagle Ford Drilling Permits for 2016**

Permits for drilling in the Eagle Ford Shale are being issued at their lowest rate since 2010.

The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) reported this week that from January-August, they issued 4,830 original drilling permits throughout the state of Texas.

642 of those permits are for operations in the Eagle Ford Shale. Eight months into the year and the numbers don’t look good. If the trend continues, the Eagle Ford will have fewer permits issued by the end of the year since before 2010.

August Drilling Permits

The Texas Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) reported this week that it issued 660 original drilling permits in August 2016. This number was a decline from the 864 permits issued in August 2015. Permits include:

512 permits to drill new oil or gas wells
Eight to re-enter plugged well bores
140 for re-completions of existing well bores
Well types included 203 oil, 24 gas, 392 oil or gas, 26 injection, zero service and 15 other permits

August Well Completions

Well completions for August are also down compared to last year.

Total well completions for 2016 year to date are 8,107 down from 14,665 recorded during the same period in 2015.

The Eagle Ford Shale rig count remained flat this week, ending with 44 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.The rig count in the Eagle Ford is back up to 44 after bottoming out at 32 in May. A total of 495 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States an increase of eight from last week with 241 of the rigs running in Texas.

Economist Karr Ingham of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers says operators across the state have begin to add jobs back for the first time since 2015. Since the bottom began to fall out of the oil and gas industry 19 months ago, more than 102,000 jobs have been cut from every sector. The job loss rate slowed in June and in July, 100 jobs were added.

Eagle Ford Rig Count Flat at 44

September 9, 2016 Elizabeth Alford

The Eagle Ford Shale rig count remained flat this week, ending with 44 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.

In recent Eagle Ford news, Economist Karr Ingham of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers says operators across the state have begin to add jobs back for the first time since 2015.

A total of 506 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week, an increase of 11 from last week of two. 92 rigs targeted natural gas (four more than the previous week) and 414 were targeting oil in the U.S. (seven more than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 245 of the rigs active in the U.S. were running in Texas.

Baker Hughes reports its own Eagle Ford Rig Count that covers the 14 core counties. The rig count published on EagleFordShale.com includes a 30 county area impacted by Eagle Ford development. A full list of the counties included can be found in the table below.

Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Rigs

6 rigs in the Eagle Ford region targeted natural gas this week with the commodity trading at $2.80/mmbtu.

The Eagle Ford rigs targeting oil were at 38 with WTI oil prices gaining $1.44 to $45.88 .

A total of 38 rigs are drilling horizontal wells, one is drilling directional wells and five are vertical.

Karnes County continues to lead development this week with eight rigs in operation. See the full list below in the Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County below.

Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County

Eagle Ford Shale News

Texas Oil & Gas Industry Challenges Study

100 New Jobs for Texas Oil & Gas

Carrizo Seeks Co-investor for Eagle Ford Deals

UTA: Air Contamination Not Inherent in Fracking

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 Baker Hughes 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.

Carrizo Seeks Co-investor for Eagle Ford Deals

September 8, 2016 Elizabeth Alford

**Carrizo Looking for eagle Ford Opportunities**

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc., is looking to increase their Eagle Ford holdings, according to one news source.

Related: Carrizo Focuses on Eagle Ford

Executives at Carrizo told investors in February that their total 2016 CapEx program is focused on the Eagle Ford. After a strong second quarter, the company is moving forward with additional opportunities to expand in the region.

Express News reported yesterday that Carrizo has been in talks with private equity investors about teaming up to acquire fields in the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas. CEO Chip Johnson said the company is looking for a co-investor for potential transactions of $1 billion or more.

Carrizo increased capital expenditures for the Eagle Ford due to the strong results. Analysts expect a 10% oil production growth in 2017. Company stock stock has added 18.4% over the past four weeks.

Carrizo’s second quarter Eagle Ford highlights include:

Drilled 19 gross (18.3 net) operated wells during the second quarter and completed 19 gross (18.0 net) wells.
Crude oil production from the play was approximately 21,200 Bbls/d for the quarter, down from the prior quarter as production was impacted by significant downtime associated with planned shut-ins for offsetting completion activity.
At the end of the quarter, Carrizo had 33 gross (32.1 net) operated Eagle Ford wells waiting on completion, equating to net crude oil production potential of more than 12,000 Bbls/d.
Operating two rigs in the Eagle Ford and currently expects to drill approximately 67 gross (63 net) operated wells and complete 73 gross (68 net) operated wells in the play during 2016.

Texas Oil & Gas Industry Challenges Study

September 7, 2016 Elizabeth Alford

Oil and gas industry officials are coming out swinging in light of a new environmental assessment claiming Texas children will face severe health threats caused by pollution from oil and gas production.

Last week,environmental groups Earthworks and the Clean Air Task Force released a new report titled “Gasping for Breath” that predicts smog from oil and gas fields will cause nearly 144,500 asthma attacks in Texas children within nine years.

The pro-industry group, North Texans for Natural Gas (NTNG) quickly shot back, claiming that the groups behind the report are willfully denying facts and data in order to pave the way for greater federal control over Texas.

This isn’t the first time that NTNG has criticized Earthworks. Over the years they have countered the environmentalists’ claims as being unscientific, misrepresentative, rhetorical trickery and shamefully using children as ‘political props’.

“Groups funded to oppose fracking are threatening our health, not protecting it. The latest ‘report’ from established anti-oil and natural gas groups used misinformed ozone projections and openly ignored advances in technology that are improving air quality. Ozone levels have been trending downward for decades even as oil and natural gas production has increased. Regulators, scholars and international organizations credit fracking and the increased use of natural gas with improving air quality.”

— Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil & Gas Association

The study highlights national health concerns by 2025:

Nationally, there will be more than 750,000 summertime asthma attacks in children under the age of 18 due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution.
Each summer, there will be more than 2,000 asthma-related emergency room visits and over 600 respiratory related hospital admissions nationally due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution. * EPA also looked at mortality associated with ozone pollution. We excluded mortality from our analysis because there is a higher degree of uncertainty associated with this estimate. 9
Children will miss 500,000 days of school nationally each year due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution.
Each year, adults must deal with 1.5 million days when they are forced to rest or reduce activity due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution.

At the end of last month, the University of Texas at Arlington released a new study focusing on the Eagle Ford Shale Play, finding that air contamination around fracking sites is likely not inherent to the oil and gas extraction process.

100 New Jobs for Texas Oil & Gas

September 6, 2016 Elizabeth Alford

100 new Texas jobs have been added to the oil and gas industry in July, according to one economist.

Economist Karr Ingham of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers says operators across the state have begin to add jobs back for the first time since 2015.

Since the bottom began to fall out of the oil and gas industry 19 months ago, more than 102,000 jobs have been cut from every sector. The job loss rate slowed in June and in July, 100 jobs were added.

Ingram told Fuelfix that the net gain of 100 jobs reflects an increase of 900 oil field service jobs with a decrease of 800 jobs from exploration and production companies.

“I believe it’s a recovery in the making, but it’s a slow, frustrating and torturous one because prices aren’t going up as much as most people hoped,” Ingham said. “But the first thing was the bleeding had to stop, and it looks like we may be at that point.”

The gain in jobs is tiny, but is one of several positive signs that maybe the worst is over. This week, a total of 495 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States an increase of eight from last week with 241 of the rigs running in Texas. The rig count in the Eagle Ford is back up to 44 after bottoming out at 32 in May. Drilling permits in Texas are also on the rise and crude oil prices are remaining in the mid to high $40s after dipping as low as the mid $20s in February.