The Eagle Ford Shale drilling rig count held flat at 267 rigs working after dropping below 270 for the first time since early March.  The biggest change was realized in Webb County, where 9 rigs moved out. Webb County hit a peak of 41 rigs running in November of 2011, but the rig count has fallen in step with natural gas prices since. Much of the Eagle Ford formation is liquids rich in the northern part of the county, but almost all other development is natural gas focused. Lewis Petroleum had the biggest change of any of the major operators. The company dropped 6 rigs from 11 to 5. Watching their operated count over the next few weeks will help us determine if this is just one week blip in the rig count statistics or if the company has slowed down in response to gas prices.

Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Rigs

The natural gas directed rig count fell 8 to 67 running this week. That marks the first time we've fallen below 70 gas rigs running in the past year. DeWitt with 19 and Webb with 14 lead the natural gas focused counties. Oil directed activity jumped to 199 rigs and is back near all time highs set in mid-March.

Natural gas prices held almost flat week over week at 10-year lows and are trading at $2.09/mmbtu as of Friday afternoon. That's after trading below $2 intra-day earlier in the week. Oil prices remained flat at $103 per barrel (WTI). Not bad considering the equity market performance during the week.

250 horizontal rigs are running and we have 1 storage well being drilled in La Salle County. Karnes County leads development with 40 rigs. La Salle (39), DeWitt (28), McMullen (26), Dimmit (23), Webb (23), Gonzales (21),  Atascosa (12), and Live Oak (11) make up the top Eagle Ford counties.

Devorah Fox, from Mike Byrnes & Associates contributed a great article related to Compliance Safety Accountability in the Eagle Ford. Be sure anyone with a CDL reads here tips and notes.

It was a slow week for news in the Eagle Ford. There was a successful Eagle Ford Job Fair earlier in the week and Chevron-Phillips is breaking ground on a world class petro-chemical plant.

Visit our Eagle Ford Hotels page. We've negotiated discounted rates with hotels that are welcoming the Oil & Gas Industry.

Come back weekly for updates or sign up for alerts.

Drilling 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.

Drilling Rigs by County