Photos Of Eagle Ford Shale Oil Wells

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Here is a photo of an Eagle Ford Shale oil well in the “oil and condensate window” of this major shale oil play in South Texas. This photo, which  was taken on June 25, 2010 is of EOG Resources Hundley lease along the Franklin Ranch Road in McMullen County Texas. The Hundley well was one of several delineation wells drilled by EOG to determine the extent of the Eagle Ford shale oil play.   EOG has over 550,000 acres leased in the heart of the so called oil window of the Eagle Ford shale and they have estimated their leases alone to hold over one billion barrels of oil. This “oil window”  is where a lot of  leasing and drilling activity is currently occurring. The lower part of the Eagle Ford shale, which is deeper and more geologically mature, holds trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. In the northern, shallower edge of the Eagle Ford shale, there is more liquid content with oil and condensate more prevalent. It is because natural gas prices are low and oil prices are high that the oil window of the Eagle Ford shale play is red hot right now. Oil companies are paying up to $2000 an acre or more just for the right to explore for three years with up to 25% of oil royalties going to the landowner. Major drilling programs involving dozens of rigs are to begin in early 2011.

The Eagle Ford shale is possibly the sixth largest discovery of oil in the United States and is also a very large natural gas play as well.

In the photo below you can see a small amount of H2S gas being flared and a large vessel used to store condensate. Condensate is lighter than crude and is a very valuable liquid petroleum product, priced similarly to light sweet crude on world markets.  A pumpjack can be seen in toward the rear of the lease. This lease consists of multiple horizontal wells.  A compressor can be seen in the middle of the photo. Gas is being sold into a gathering pipeline. One consideration in choosing where where new wells are being drilled is proximity to gas pipelines since most of the wells in the oil and condensate window of the Eagle Ford shale will produce natural gas as well.  One of the wells, the Hundley #2H was shown by EOG to be producing 493 barrels per day.

Here is another photo of an Eagle Ford shale oil well lease.

Below is a photo of a new oil and gas pipeline being laid south of Jourdanton Texas. Many such medium sized pipelines are being laid across South Texas to gather production from the sixth largest oil discovery in U.S. history.

If you would like to purchase a high resolution copy of any of the Eagle Ford shale well or pipeline photos you can contact me by visiting  EnergyIndustryPhotos.com and clicking on the contact info at the bottom of the page.