The Eagle Ford Shale rig count increased two rigs to 267 running over the past week.

Marathon Oil held its analyst day earlier in the week and released an updated resource estimate for the company's Eagle Ford properties.

Initially, the company thought it would recover 469 million boe in the region and now expects that number is greater than 1 billion boe.

Marathon also plans to co-develop the Austin Chalk and Eagle Ford from pads where viable.

Read the full article: Marathon Oil Increases Its Eagle Ford Resource Estimate to 1 Billion Boe

The U.S. rig count increased 7 rigs from 1,775 to 1,782 running over the past week. A total of 369 rigs are targeting natural gas (6 less than last week) and 1,411 (14 more than last week) are targeting oil in the U.S. The remainder are drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.). 848 or 48% of rigs active in the U.S. are running in Texas.

Baker Hughes rig count is quoted here. Baker Hughes also releases its own Eagle Ford Rig Count that covers the 14 core counties (229 rigs). 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 near the bottom of this article.

Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Rigs

[ic-l]The natural gas rig count increased one rig to 27 running this past week. At this time in 2012, there were more than 60 rigs and in 2011 there were more than 90 rigs targeting natural gas in the area. Don't be surprised if this is the bottom and we see more natural gas rigs in 2014. Natural gas traded up $0.30 this week to ~$4.40/mmbtu on Friday afternoon.

The oil rig count increased one rig to 239 rigs running. WTI oil prices held basically flat on the week at $97/bbl. Eagle Ford light crude traded at $94/bbl on Dec. 11th.

A total of 233 rigs are drilling horizontal wells, 20 rigs are drilling directional wells, and 14 rigs are drilling true vertical wells. Karnes, DeWitt, La Salle, and McMullen counties all have between 29 and 32 rigs running. See the full list of drilling by county below.

South Texas Oil & Gas News:

• MHR Signs Option To Sell Remaining Eagle Ford and Pearsall Assets
• Marathon Increases Its Eagle Ford Resource Estimate to 1 Billion Barrels
• Eagleford Energy - Stratex Sign Eagle Ford Joint Development Agreement
• Alamo Colleges & Weatherford Get $1.5 Million to Train Eagle Ford Workers
• Abraxas Petroleum Sells McMullen County Eagle Ford Acreage for $73 Million

Be sure to visit our South Texas Oilfield Job Listings to search openings and come back weekly for updates or sign up for alerts - Daily or Weekly Email Alerts

Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County

Eagle Ford Operated Rig Count By Company

SmithBits no longer reports its operated rig count, but we'll have updated number for you from a new source soon. Until then, you can reference our numbers from mid-April. There has not been a significant change in the overall rig count since this date:

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 and/or Smith Service Co's (Schlumberger) Smith Rig Count.