Technology — Eagle Ford Shale News — Eagle Ford Shale Play

The Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) has really outgrown its name. While the name indicates an offshore focus, you'll find companies who service the oil & gas industry in all walks on and off shore.

Attendance set a record at almost 105,000. That's the highest since 1982.

If you didn't attend, you missed out on over 2,700 industry exhibits displaying new technologies that improve oil and gas exploration and operations.

A few highlights include:

Statoils remote welding robot that allows a company to tie into a live pipe
Geogrid technology from Tensar that strengthens rig pads and can be used to decrease erosion
Water desalination technology advances
New, improved version of GE's blind sheer ram (part of the BOP)
A rig that is almost fully automated and robotic - no humans on the deck floor
Downhole pipe cutting tool that leaves smooth edges

We only spent a day at the OTC conference, but you can read more about the whole week at fuelfix.com

If you are a stockholder in oil and gas companies, you are hoping everything lands where Mark Papa sees it. He believes unconventional gas and oil companies have been undervalued long enough. EOG has reported recoverable reserves up to 900 mmboe in the Eagle Ford Shale, but Papa mentions that the company estimates there is as much as 21 Billion barrels of oil in place across EOG's acreage. The 900 mmboe equates to a recovery factor of less than 5%. Grow the recovery to 10, 15, 0r 20% and it could mean billions of dollars for stockholders.

...Papa is pretty well known as a straight shooter in the oil and gas industry so when he says something it is worth listening to. This comment caught my attention:
"The true impact of unconventional drilling in unconventional rock formations is the most underreported event in the mainstream press today"
As did this one:
"It's a new paradigm. Unconventional drilling has dramatically changed the U.S. natural gas and crude oil picture in the U.S. and is probably the biggest change in the last 40 years in the industry. Everybody in the world is chasing these shale plays."
And I think this unconventional revolution makes for in interesting opportunity.
This is a technological step change that has made millions of acres of land extremely valuable. The oil and gas industry obviously knows this, you can tell by the way the industry is snapping up the land and shifting capital in that direction.
The stock market however, seems a little slow on the uptake.
From what I can tell there are dozens of smaller oil and gas companies that hold large acreage positions in these emerging unconventional plays. And the stock market is valuing that land as being virtually worthless...

Read the full news release at seekingalpha.com