Ford

ConocoPhillips, the largest independent in the United States, was the first on Thursday to announce plans to reduce capital spending to cope with the recent downturn in oil prices. Some drilling cutbacks will be made, but not within two of its best rate-of-return plays, the Eagle Ford and Bakken shales.

Despite admitting that 2015 could be one of the toughest years yet for oil and gas prices, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. management on Friday reaffirmed the company’s plans to grow annual production by 20-30%, with a drilling program that could eventually lean more heavily on the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas.

Implementation of its enhanced completion program in the Eagle Ford Shale and weather-related delays in the Williston Basin caused SM Energy Co. to turn in disappointing third quarter production results.

Eagle Ford Shale oil and natural gas production generated more than $87 billion in economic output for Texas last year, and that contribution to the state’s economy is projected by researchers to grow to $137 billion by 2023.

Denver-based SM Energy Co. raised its production guidance for 2014 in spite of an anticipated hiccup in the company’s Eagle Ford Shale operations during the third quarter. The company also will be spending more than planned earlier.

Sundance Energy Australia Ltd. is picking up Texas acreage prospective for the Eagle Ford Shale and for the Georgetown Formation and has sold its acreage in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin in order to refocus capital on core areas, the company said.

Over the last five months, the number of horizontal drilling rigs targeting oil in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico has climbed by more than five dozen, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), marking a steep ramp-up in activity.

ConocoPhillips posted better-than-expected results in the first quarter, aided by its “biggest contributor” today, the Eagle Ford Shale.

Super independent ConocoPhillips’ estimated resource base in the Eagle Ford Shale is 2.5 billion bbl of oil in place, much more than a previous forecast of 1.8 billion, management said Thursday.