Eagle Ford Shale

Marathon Oil Corp.’s U.S. resource plays can hold their own in a low-price environment, and the company’s U.S. drilling program is expected to proceed essentially unchanged from plan, executives said Tuesday.

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.

Lower prices for crude oil aren’t doing any favors for Enterprise Products Partners LP’s proposed crude pipeline from North Dakota to the Cushing, OK, hub, executives admitted Thursday. But U.S. producers have staying power even at lower oil prices because the country “…is in the middle of a production revolution,” they said.

Texas crude oil and natural gas production statistics continue to reflect producers’ preference for oil over less-lucrative natural gas.

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) on Tuesday adopted rule changes that are intended to more closely regulate drilling waste disposal wells in areas of the state where there has been or could be heightened seismic activity.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. has grown its Eagle Ford Shale position by 6,820 net acres to more than 81,000 and added 93 net wells to its drilling inventory of more than 915 net locations in the play through a $243 million cash deal with Eagle Ford Minerals LLC, the Houston-based company said Monday.

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.

Clayton Williams Energy Inc. (CWEI) is tweaking its Eagle Ford Shale fracking operations and experimenting with downspacing. In the Delaware Basin, three of its recent wells ran into trouble, and the Midland, TX-based independent said it is monitoring the pullback in oil prices as it considers plans for next year.

Talk about natural gas oversupply may not be the big story when the domestic exploration and production (E&P) sector unveils quarterly earnings reports over the next few weeks. Instead, conversations may center around the impact lower crude oil prices had on the third quarter, and how they may impact drilling plans into 2015, energy analysts said this week.