Eagle Ford, Texas Shale Oil, Still Has Plenty Of Life

The Eagle Ford, a sedimentary rock formation in south Texas that has produced more than 3.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent since 2008, still has plenty of life left if the oil bust ever ends.

Oil and Gas Investor magazine reported that Lonestar Resources US Inc. LONE said May 30 it agreed to acquire roughly 21,000 net Eagle Ford acres, more than doubling its leasehold in the shale play.

“We believe the Eagle Ford is still a solid and prolific trend and worthy of attention. We like the geography, the geology, the infrastructure, the regulatory regime, and friendly natives,” reported a Wunderlich analyst team led by Arthur Hogan.

Eagle Ford Uses Fracking

Fort Worth, Texas-based Lonestar entered definitive agreements with unaffiliated parties to acquire properties in the Texas counties of Karnes, Gonzales, DeWitt, Lavaca and Fayette for about $116.6 million in cash and stock, Oil and Gas Investor said.

The oil and gas in Eagle Ford’s fossil-rich shale is withdrawn through the controversial method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which rock is fractured by a pressurized liquid. Environmentalists say the technique causes too much damage.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration says 26 percent of the natural gas used in the U.S. comes from Texas.

“Production of natural gas in the United States reached its highest recorded total in 2015. The increase in production was mainly the result of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques, notably in shale, sandstone, carbonate, and other tight geologic formations,” the agency said.

Eagle Ford is big even by Texas standards, but it’s not the biggest. The U.S. Geological Survey last November announced it found the biggest oil deposit yet - 20 billion barrels - at the Wolfcamp Shale Formation in West Texas.

See Also:

6 Companies That Stand To Benefit From Fracking