Eagle

Dallas-based Southcross Energy Partners LP has begun construction of a 94-mile, 24-inch diameter pipeline in the rich gas area of the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. The Webb Pipeline is expected to have initial uncompressed capacity of 300 MMcf/d.

Valero Energy Corp. is upgrading two of its refineries in Texas so they can process more light sweet crude from the prolific Eagle Ford Shale, a company spokesman told NGI’s Shale Daily.

Eagle Ford Shale activities will continue to power growth at Houston-based Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. this year, management told analysts Tuesday, while the company remains “very encouraged” by its first well results in the Utica Shale in Ohio. One analyst suggested that Niobrara assets could be jettisoned with proceeds redeployed to South Texas.

Armed with modern drilling technologies and results from vertical wells past, operators have been returning to the Buda Limestone Formation, a downstairs neighbor of the Eagle Ford Shale, and plying it with horizontal wells and lessons from the revitalization of the similar and shallower Austin Chalk.

About 90% of Sanchez Energy Corp.’s drilling and completion spending this year will target the Eagle Ford Shale, with the remainder going to the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) where the company expects industry activity, and learning, to accelerate.

Production from the prolific Eagle Ford Shale will increase this year as operators lay down close to $30 billion to unearth more crude oil and liquids, new research is claiming.

Dallas-based Gulf Coast Western LLC has secured 3,500 acres in Wilson County, TX, where it intends to target the “revitalized” Buda Limestone Formation with 10 horizontal wells initially. The naturally fractured Buda is just below the Eagle Ford Shale and is seen as a lower-cost oil opportunity than the Eagle Ford.

Eagle Rock Energy Partners LP is transforming itself into a pure-play upstream master limited partnership (MLP) through the sale of its midstream business to Regency Energy Partners LP as it sees more opportunities for growth by exploiting and adding to its assets in the Midcontinent, Permian Basin, South and East Texas as well as in Alabama and Mississippi.

Penn Virginia Corp. (PVA) is selling substantially all of its Eagle Ford Shale natural gas midstream assets to a newly-formed affiliate of ArcLight Capital Partners LLC for gross cash proceeds of $100 million.