The Eagle Ford Shale drilling rig count settled at 265 to end the week. Several rigs were reclassified to take the oil rig count down to 207 from the record 215 last week. The labor day holiday made the week short for most and the only major news was that Pioneer Natural Resources plans to sell its Barnett Shale assets to focus its efforts. The company will now "reallocate capital to higher-return, core assets in the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford Shale". The capital raised will be used to pay down the company's credit facility. The data room opens in October and a deal is expected to close in the first quarter of next year.
Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Rigs
The number of natural gas rigs increased by 3 to 55 this week. The slight recovery is a bounce off the low of 52 last week. Rigs continue to shift from natural gas to oil targets in Webb County, but DeWitt County saw a jump of 3 rigs that offset the decline in Webb. There are 207 oil rigs working the region. That's eight off the record set last week, but still near prior records. One injection well is being drilled in Karnes County. Two disposal wells are being drilled - one in Karnes County and one in Leon County.
Henry Hub futures were trading at ~$2.68 on Friday afternoon. Spot prices on the other hand moved almost the same amount, but in a positive direction to $2.85.
WTI was trading at ~$96/bbl Friday afternoon. This is the fourth week in a row we've ended trading around that level. Eagle Ford crude priced at $104/bbl on September 6th and light crude and condensate traded at $92 and $91, respectively.
There are 249 horizontal rigs running in the region. The three counties leading development are Karnes with 43 rigs, La Salle with 33 and McMullen with 30. Dimmit (27), DeWitt (21), Webb (21), Gonzales (20), Atascosa (10), Frio (11), and Live Oak (10) round out the top Eagle Ford counties.
News items this week included:
- Pioneer's Barnett Shale Divestiture Announcement
- Tips for Pulling Trailers Safely - Fox
- SM Energy's Eagle Ford Production Surged in July
Be sure to visit our South Texas Oilfield Job Listings to search openings and come back weekly for updates or sign up for alerts.
Eagle Ford Rig Count by Operator
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 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.
Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County
