How Much Oil Is There In The Eagle Ford Shale?
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Getting a true picture of how much oil is contained in the Eagle Ford shale at this point is difficult. One reason that no hard numbers are out there yet is because there are simply not enough wells and production figures. As more wells come online we should start to see the bean counters come up with some better numbers. For now, I’ve got some for you, based on projections from companies like EOG Resources and Petrohawk Energy.
Eagle Ford Shale Oil Potential Greater Than Bakken Shale
The Bakken shale in North Dakota, which thus far was considered the largest new oil discovery in the United States, at around 2.5 billion barrels, may pale in comparison to the Eagle Ford shale. EOG Resources for example, has estimated Eagle Ford shale reserves of 900,000,000 (nine hundred million) barrels in their roughly 505,000 acres in the oil window. That’s “net after royalty” meaning you can add about 20-25% more to that figure for another 180,000 barrels of recoverable oil. There, in just a fraction of the Eagle Ford shale “oil window”, you get over one billion barrels, or half of the Bakken Shale. McMullen county alone is comprised of 712,320 acres. Much of that county lies in the oil window. What is not in the oil window is in the gas and condensate window. Since condensate counts as oil, there’s a bunch more to add to the tally in that sector of the Eagle Ford shale.
Petrohawk Energy has reported that in the 360,000 acres they hold, 225,000 are in the oil and condensate window and have the potential to produce 340 million barrels. That’s 1,511 barrels per acre of liquids for Petrohawk Energy and 1,782 barrels per acre (net after royalty) for EOG Resources. And that’s only the oil window! Let’s just take a look at the map below and do a very rough estimate.
Map from EOG Resources
Take LaSalle county for example, (where the Hoff #4H is located above), which consists of 956,800 acres. Of that, roughly half is in the oil window, and the other in the gas and condensate windows. EOG Resources recently drilled a series of delineation wells, as seen above, and has estimated that the potential of oil and gas production over a 120 mile swath of South Texas is fairly consistent.
Just for fun, if you take an area of roughly three LaSalle counties in the oil and condensate window of the Eagle Ford shale, or 2,870,400 acres, and multiply that number by the average barrels per acre that has been proposed by EOG and Petrohawk, or 1,646 barrels of recoverable crude (net after royalty), per acre, and multiply that by 2,870,400, you get
4,724,678,400 barrels of oil. That’s about 4.7 billion barrels, or roughly twice the size of the massive Bakken shale in North Dakota.
Now look at the chart below, showing remaining U.S. reserves.
Right now, according to these very, very rough estimates, there is possibly as much or more oil in the Eagle Ford shale as exists in all of Alaska. There’s more than in the federally controlled offshore areas, California and the Permian Basin. Oh, and guess what? The Eagle Ford shale is one of the largest domestic natural gas discoveries as well. Are you like me and are wondering why the Eagle Ford shale is not front page news across the nation?
Article by eaglefordshaleblog.com author Nolan Hart, August 12, 2101
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