Eagle Ford Rig Count - 264 - SM Energy Eagle Ford Oil Production Down Slightly in Q4 - 2013

February 21, 2014 Kirk Eggleston

SM Energy Eagle Ford Production

The Eagle Ford Shale rig count stayed flat at 264 rigs running over the past week.

In recent news, SM Energy completed 95 wells in its operated Eagle For acreage. The company had production of 74,800 boe/d in the Eagle Ford in the fourth-quarter. Although production was at its highest during this time, there was less oil production.

The U.S. rig count increased by 7 to 1,771 running over the past week. A total of 342 rigs are targeting natural gas (5 more than last week) and 1,425 are targeting oil in the U.S. (2 more than last week). The remainder are drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.). 846or ~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 (221 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

The natural gas rig count decreased by one rig to 35 running this past week. Average rig counts for natural gas production in 2012 were around 82 and then dropped to around 41 in 2013. Over the past week, natural gas increased to $6.13/mmbtu on Friday afternoon.

The oil rig count increased by 1 to 229 rigs running. WTI oil prices stayed relatively flat, trading at $102.11/bbl by the end of the week. Eagle Ford light crude traded at $99.50/bbl on February 20th.

A total of 235 rigs are drilling horizontal wells, 17 rigs are drilling directional wells, and 12 rigs are drilling true vertical wells. Karnes, La Salle, Dimmit and McMullen counties each have at minimum 29 rigs running. LaSalle County has the highest rig count this week at 33. See the full list below in the Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County:

South Texas Oil & Gas News:

Be sure to visit our South Texas Oilfield Job Listings to search openings and come back weekly for updates.

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.