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

Related: 100 New Jobs for Texas Oil & Gas

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.

Read more at rrc.texas.gov