As if to emphasize these points, just before this story went live, Ranger announced it had completed a series of bolt-on acquisitions of acreage adjacent to its existing holdings totaling $64 million. Anyone managing NORM materials above the exemption levels must comply with certain standards. Marathon Oil Corporation Marathon Oil Corporation ranks #2 in wells drilled in the Eagle Ford in 2023 with 86 wells drilled. No, however, operators are required to follow all RRC regulations, which are designed to ensure protection of the public and the environment. How Deep is the Eagle Ford Formation Found? What can be done about the stormwater runoff? Pleasecontact uswith comments and suggestions concerning the Eagle Ford Information web area. This year, 37 new wells are planned, along with 50 completions. The relation of exposure pathways and the health risks relative to those pathways was DSHSs basis for adopting the regulatory exemption levels. Prices for top E&P stocks and commodities. See, The Commissions regulations ensure the quality of waters (and land) that could be potentially impacted by an oil and gas operators activity. He credited Penn Virginias previous management team for creating an inclusive environment that has enabled that rare result in the oil and gas business to come about in an organic way, as more and more women come into and excel within what had traditionally been a male-dominated industry. Need to review the individual field rules for each of the Eagle Ford Shale Fields. The RRCs rules were developed in consultation with the DSHS regarding protection of public health and the environment. Publicly-traded companies tend to deploy fewer rigs, he said. See 16 TAC 3.32. Radon decay elements occur as a film on the inner surface of inlet lines, treating units, pumps, and valves principally associated with propylene, ethane, and propane processing streams. Industry. Water management and ESG goals move in tandem across the Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken and Appalachian regions. With a 20-year drilling inventory at a current pace of approximately 50 wells a year, the company has 750 locations in the lower Eagle Ford Shale. While several companies are working to unlock these hydrocarbons, five stand out as the dominant players in the Eagle Ford. What will be unique about this year is well be materially increasing our lateral lengths, he said. The DSHSs radiological program protects the occupationally exposed as well as the public from unnecessary exposure to radiation. Prior to 2015, almost 9,000 wells in the Eagle Ford were completed with cluster spacings that were three or more times wider than current spacing, he explains, leaving significant volumes of stranded hydrocarbons. Ranger wants to continue to expand in a region ripe for additional consolidation, given a disproportionately high number of operators to overall production, he says. David Blackmon is a Texas-based public policy analyst/consultant. Grit Oil & Gas, Marathon Oil lead new drilling permit applications The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. What is law regarding ingress and egress using existing roads? The completions team continues to research optimal completion design to achieve higher production, EURs and NPVs per well, says Mary Ellen Lutey, senior vice president of exploration, development and EHS. You may wish to consult with an attorney in your area to fully understand your rights and remedies available to you. In addition to that, it contains 23.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves making it the third largest gas play in the country. Article by: Hobart M. King, PhD, RPG Eagle Ford Shale: This is a "night lights" image of southeast Texas from NASA's Suomi satellite. As producers scramble to extend their inventory runways, companies are drilling deeper test wells in the Permian Basin and exploring emerging plays in the Lower 48. Grit has received approval from the Texas Railroad Commission to drill seven new horizontal wells in Dimmit and Maverick counties. The relation of exposure pathways and the health risks relative to those pathways was DSHSs basis for adopting the regulatory exemption levels. Railroad Commission regulations require that the operator empty and close a drilling pit within one year of cessation of drilling activities. Operators Drilling in Eagle Ford - San Antonio Business Journal In addition, radon gas, a radium daughter, may be found in produced natural gas. June 21, 2023. . The Better Business publication of the exploration, drilling, and production industry. It has been this way for a while now. The Commission has no jurisdiction over property interests or contractual rights, including issues regarding the validity of existing oil, gas and mineral leases and the conduct of individuals attempting to obtain leases. Database of selected U.S. and international exploration wells. The RRC has jurisdiction over disposal of oil and gas NORM waste and the management of NORM waste at an oil and gas property to facilitate disposal at the site. The operator must submit a site-specific Form W-1 (application to drill) with a plat to scale showing the requirements listed in Statewide Rule 5 (16 TAC 3.5) Application To Drill, Deepen, Reenter, or Plug Back.They must submit a Form P-12 (certificate of pooling authority), a plat identifying offset operators, a service list for notice, and any waivers where applicable.Permit Application Fees must be paid based on depth, exceptions and whether or not processing a permit application is expedited. What is the typical size, shape and restoration of a drilling location in the Eagle Ford? The Eagle Ford Shale is believed to have been formed in the late Cretaceous period and is estimated to be 89 to 95 million years old. Presently, the proration units range from 40 acres to 640 acres. Thousands of wells have been drilled since then and the Eagle Ford Shale play - roughly 50 miles wide and 400 miles long - now stretches from the Mexican border across large portions of South Texas and up into East Texas. When a Company Pays for Stadium Naming Rights, Is It Time to Cut and Run On Its Stock? Flowback water ranges from 500 to 600 bbl/d, but declines to on the order of 100 bbl/d within a year and eventually to 15-20 bbl/d. The company currently estimates that its acreage holds 1.1 billion BOE of recoverable resources, 65% of which is calculated to be oil based on its current production mix. If this process is approved in a specific field by independent reserve evaluation groups, it is conceivable that refrac activity may explode exponentially in that field and in analog fields in the area. HOUSTON (Bloomberg) - The Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, long overlooked compared to its larger cousin the Permian basin, saw its biggest one-week jump in drilling activity in more than two years as explorers look for growth beyond the worlds biggest shale patch. The company continues to utilize bigger fracs of 2,800 pounds of proppant per foot compared with first-generation stimulations that pumped only 600-1,000 pounds/foot. We have a share repurchase program of $100 million that starts in the 2nd quarter. However, after producing 135,000 BOE/d a year ago, Marathon Oil's production declined to 109,000 BOE/d during the second quarter of 2016 after it pulled back the reins on spending. Refracs also protect infill child wells from asymmetric fracs draining only 60% of reserves by refracturing the primary well on the pad in the zipper sequence when the infills are ready to be refractured. By the end of this year our RBL should be paid off and well have a lot of dry powder for whatever makes sense to be doing with that additional free cash flow., One thing Henke and his team will not be doing with that free cash flow is implementing major increases in the companys drilling program. SM expresses plans for 37 new drills this year with about 15% of those in the Eagle Ford after drilling 26 total wells last year. In the relatively low-risk Eagle Ford, Ranger is extending lateral lengths as technical and land teams continue to expand long-lateral inventory by identifying and adding smaller, adjacent tracts to existing leases, he says. Subsurface characteristics of the Eagle Ford basin and, most importantly, an ongoing trend among operators across the basins for complex yet ineffective designs, validate falling drilling activity in the Eagle Ford and affirm investors' skepticism in investing in shale companies. The rules include exemption criteria for certain NORM containing or contaminated materials. *Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Subsurface formations may contain low levels of radioactive materials such as uranium and thorium and their daughter products, radium 226 and radium 228. The RRC has jurisdiction over disposal of oil and gas NORM waste and the management of NORM waste at an oil and gas property to facilitate disposal at the site. February's Eagle Ford oil production is forecast to hit 1.2 million bpd, the most since April 2020, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. Still, overall drilling permits for the Eagle Ford Shale continue to outpace the Austin Chalk, he adds. The discovery well was drilled by Petrohawk Energy Corporation in 2008 in La Salle County, Texas. With respect to entry into lease agreements and actions of individuals, please be advised that the Railroad Commissions jurisdiction is limited to issues concerning the permitting and production from oil and gas wells in the State of Texas. We are looking at a 17% increase from 2021 prorated so far this year for permitting in the Eagle Ford and the Austin Chalk, following the same trend line that occurred during 2021, Mayer says. This has been a great project for us and we have a significant inventory of refracs that we look forward to pursuing in the future.. This depends on the type of well/operation. You can find production information on the RRC website by using the, Railroad Commission regulations generally allow gas to be released for a period not to exceed ten (10) producing days after initial completion, recompletion, in another field, or workover operations in the same field. DAX Please see 16 TAC 3.8. The geological risk is minimal compared with a new well, Barba continues, and condensate yield uncertainty is low in areas where yields are highly variable in the Eagle Ford volatile oil window. The Commission does not have any regulatory authority over the impact on property value as a result of drilling activities on your property unless a violation of Commission rules related to the prevention of pollution of usable quality water occurs. Locally Researched by: San Antonio Business Journal Oct 01, 2021, 1:46pm CDT. Calculated by average return of all stock recommendations since inception of the Stock Advisor service in February of 2002. The operator must submit a site-specific Form W-1 (application to drill) with a plat to scale showing the requirements listed in Statewide Rule 5 (16 TAC 3.5) Application To Drill, Deepen, Reenter, or Plug Back. Which Presidents Filled And Depleted The Strategic Petroleum Reserve? For production information, please use the Commission's, to get access to the on-line database for these records. More than 2,500 Subscribers rely on our data each day. Global resources giant BHP Billiton (BHP 0.40%) bought its way into the Eagle Ford when it spent $12.1 billion to acquire Petrohawk Energy in 2011. The Eagleville Eagle Ford-1 field in Karnes County, Texas is the largest producer of oil with the greatest number of oil wells in a single field in the Eagle Ford Shale. The accomplishments buttress financial performance that in 2021 put Ranger atop a list of publicly traded U.S. independents in EBITDAX margin, due to its high oil cut, low operating cost and premium product pricing given its location on the Texas Gulf Coast, Henke says. Oil Pump Unit Pumping in the Eagle Ford in South Texas. In late March, the Eagle Ford rig count stood at 56, almost double the count from a year earlier. Acreage also is prospective of the Eagle Ford, but with a lower break-even price than in the companys lucrative Midland Basin assets, the Austin Chalk is the star of the show right now, he says. Permit Application Fees must be paid based on depth, exceptions and whether or not processing a permit application is expedited. In our business, certainly today, scale equals relevance. That was one of the first things that Darrin Henke, President and CEO of Eagle Ford Shale-focused independent producer Ranger Oil Company told me in our recent interview. Relying on seismic and measurement-while-drilling data, Crimson Energy Partners IV is optimizing landings in two oil-saturated layers of the Lower Eagle Ford while keeping an eye out for growth prospects in the basins southwestern edge, says President Frank F. Starr II. It becomes shallower and the shale content increases as it moves to the northwest. The size of Penn Virginia, a small publicly traded company, previously just didnt generate a lot of excitement (among Wall Street investors), Henke said. Because the levels typically are so low, the NORM in produced waters and natural gas is not a problem in Texas unless it becomes concentrated in some manner. While some operators continue to exploit the oil and gas benches in the upper and lower Eagle Ford, others are focusing on the Austin Chalk, the most profitable among four Texas plays on a net present value basis, according to a 2020 TGS study, Mayer points out. Payout per well is nine months. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. Explain why a surface location for horizontal wells can be located on a lease closer to a lease line than the field rules require? See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. This year, it is continuing to optimize well results by transitioning to 6-inch instead of 512-inch casing to achieve higher frac pump rates. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. It is not unusual for an operator to obtain surface rights from which to drill a well from an adjacent, more desirable location. These wells all require drilling permits. The larger pipe means quicker execution and lower costs with fewer frac stages, wireline runs and plugs, he notes. The company also continues to look for the right opportunities to add acreage, Starr says. Today, the Eagle Ford Shale contains 22 active fields across the play. In October, the company rebranded to Ranger Oil from Penn Virginia when it closed on its acquisition of established Eagle Ford player Lonestar Resources, which followed a 2021 bolt-on from Rock Creek Resources.