Eagle Ford Shale

The Texas upstream energy industry — oil and gas, but mostly oil — had one of its most successful years last year, according to industry barometer the Texas Petro Index (TPI).

Dealmakers in late 2013 mostly were drawn to the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, where five mergers and acquisitions (M&A) led to $6.5 billion total in transactions, compared to the Marcellus Shale, where four captured $1.5 billion, a new analysis by PwC found. The Niobrara formation’s two transactions were valued at $1.2 billion, while two in the Utica Shale contributed $263 million.

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.

Sanchez Energy Corp., which is focused exclusively on the Eagle Ford Shale and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS), kicked its total production volumes up nine-fold for the fourth quarter, more than seven-fold for the year, and saw gas production increase more than 3,000% in the fourth quarter.

Comstock Resources Inc. last year grew its oil production by 29% but saw natural gas production fall by close to one-third (32%), thanks in large part to its drilling program targeting the Eagle Ford Shale, the company said Tuesday.

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.

Walls and driveways are cracked at homes in and around Azle, TX; sinkholes have wiped out property values; children and horses are scared, and the elderly are rousted from their beds in the middle of the night — all by a swarm of more than 30 earthquakes since early November that the afflicted blame on drilling waste injection wells in the region.

EP Energy LLC, a privately held explorer formed from spun-off assets of the former El Paso Corp., launched Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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.