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Drillers in a few of the biggest shale plays in the country are set to scale back their oil production dramatically next month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s forecast released Tuesday. The EIA said in its Drilling Productivity Report that overall U.S. oil production would fall 93,000 barrels per day to 5.12 million bpd total in November, the largest decrease recorded in the agency’s data going back to 2007. The drop would also mark the seventh-straight month of production pullbacks. Three of the largest U.S. shale plays — the Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara — together could lose...

For the top U.S. shale plays that once seemed immune to the downturn, persistently low oil prices are starting to take their toll. The lingering crude slump is expected to drive down production next year in the nation’s premiere oil patches — West Texas’ Permian Basin, South Texas’ Eagle Ford and North Dakota’s Bakken shale — as operators spend less to stay within cash flow, according to a report by investment banking firm Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. With oil hovering around $50 per barrel, or less than half the price it fetched last year, output from the so-called Big...

Crude oil production in September from seven major US shale plays is expected to decline 93,000 b/d to 5.27 million b/d, according to the US Energy Information Administration’s latest Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). EIA previously projected 91,000-b/d declines for both July and August (OGJ Online, June 9, 2015; July 13, 2015). The DPR focuses on the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Marcellus, Niobrara, Permian, and Utica, which altogether accounted for 95% of US oil production increases and all US natural gas production increases during 2011-13. The Eagle Ford continues to represent a bulk of the overall oil output declines, projected to...

Oil production from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas will dip again in September, according to the latest report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Production of crude oil and the light oil condensate is expected to slide by 56,000 barrels daily, to around 1.48 million barrels per day. It will be the sixth straight monthly drop for Eagle Ford output. The industry has been hit hard by falling crude oil prices, with energy companies drilling and completing fewer wells. Oil prices were higher than $100 per barrel last summer but have been trading around the $45-level recently. Production...

Market analysts have a keen interest in understanding how crude oil production in key states has been affected by recent changes in crude oil prices and drilling activity. EIA develops state-level production estimates for selected states that are based in part on state-level data. However, data published by state agencies are often incomplete when first published because of a combination of late reporting and processing delays, mainly due to the filing of production reports that do not contain all required information. Because EIA's methodology for state-level production estimates aims to anticipate and account for expected revisions to data collected by...

Yesterday's Drilling Productivity Report from the EIA better defines the inflection point many in the industry have been waiting for since late-last year. US tight oil production is rolling over, and EIA sees the decline accelerating. We believe the relationship between the US rig count and US oil production is the most critical in O&G today, for it is the cornerstone of most global trough/recovery scenarios. By next month, all of the 2015 production gains will be given up per the EIA, and, at this pace, all of 2014's gains (some 1.1mmbpd) could be wiped away by mid-2016. Of course,...

The federal forecast of U.S. shale production is sinking again for the third month in a row, but the decline is still just a thin layer off the top. Daily oil production at the nation’s six biggest shale plays is set to slip by 91,000 barrels from June to July, the Energy Information Administration says. That’s roughly 2 percent of the 5.48 million U.S. barrels anticipated next month, hardly the kind of decline oil-industry stakeholders had expected for after drillers sidelined nearly 1,000 oil-drilling rigs in the last six and a half months. “It’s a pretty resilient industry,” said Bill...

Bakken production will keep growing, albeit at a slower pace, and the Eagle Ford still has running room within high-return portions of the play, according to a recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie. The Bakken and Eagle Ford together produce just over 2.5 million barrels per day of oil, or nearly two-thirds of U.S. tight oil production. Higher oil prices in the 2013 to 2014 timeframe spurred operators to drill not only in the core of the Williston Basin, but in the fringe and speculative areas. This included areas along the Montana-North Dakota border, the northern most part of the play...

U.S. shale production growth will fall 86,000 barrels per day next month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated in its monthly report, more evidence the nation’s oil boom is in decline. The EIA’s monthly forecast is the second in a row to project an overall decline in domestic production growth, as diminishing output from older shale wells outpaces new gushers in the oil fields. Producers have sidelined about 941 oil-drilling rigs since October, and oil traders are starting to see signs the U.S. shale boom is weakening, which could signal the global glut in crude supplies will ease. Crude prices...

Oil production from the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale plays look like they’ve peaked and other shale plays may not be far behind. Oil production from seven major U.S. shale plays is expected to fall by a total of 86,000 barrels a day in June, according to a monthly report from the Energy Information Administration released Monday. The previous report released a month ago also showed a forecast for a fall of 57,000 barrels a day in May. Oil output at the Eagle Ford shale play in South Texas is forecast to see the biggest decline, down 47,000 barrels a...

When Houston’s Swift Energy Co. reported first-quarter results Thursday, it offered a glimpse at the level of cost-cutting oil and gas companies are making in the Eagle Ford Shale. “We are seeing cost concessions in some cases greater than we originally budgeted,” said Terry Swift, president and CEO, said in a call with analysts. Swift’s average drilling cost this year is $2.6 million per well, down from $3.2 million last year. And its most recent Eagle Ford well was drilled for $2.2 million. Its lease operating costs dropped 16 percent from the previous quarter. Swift on Thursday reported its first-quarter...

The shale oil bonanza that made millionaires from Texas to North Dakota is slowing down for the first time in years, a sign that painful industry cutbacks are starting to have an impact. The nation’s oil production is set to slip this month by 57,000 barrels a day as natural declines in older shale wells outpace gains from newly drilled wells, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in its monthly drilling report on Monday. More than 70,000 barrels of oil a day are expected to be lost from April to May in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, South Texas’ Eagle Ford...

There are nearly 1,400 wells in the Eagle Ford Shale that have been drilled but not completed, according to new analysis from the firm IHS. Oil prices are hovering around $50 per barrel, down by half since last summer. And some Eagle Ford oil producers have been drilling but not fracking wells. The delay in completing wells avoids sending new barrels of oil into a cheap market. For a small handful of operators, IHS reports that the drilled-but-not-completed wells will give them a big advantage over competitors. Nearly 40 percent of those 1,400 delayed wells have a break-even costs below...

I’m tossing you a softball. Now think carefully. The choices are: A. Zero B. Zero C. Zero D. Zero I know Americans are math challenged and need a calculator to subtract 10 from 20, but I think even a CNBC bimbo or Princeton economic professor could get this one right. Last year there was much banter from the Wall Street shysters and Bakkan shale oil experts about the true breakeven price for shale oil not being $80 (which is the truth) but actually being as low as $58 a barrel. They were spreading this lie in order to keep idiot...

EIA's most recent Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) indicates a change in the crude oil production growth patterns in three key oil producing regions: the Eagle Ford, Niobrara, and Bakken. The DPR estimates, which were issued on March 9 and cover the months of March and April, include the first projected declines in crude oil production in these regions since publication of the DPR began in October 2013. However, with production gains continuing in other regions, particularly the Permian, overall crude oil production in regions tracked by the DPR rose slightly in March to 5.6 million barrels per day. Total production...

The U.S. shale boom may finally be slowing down, according to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Oil production from the six largest shale plays in the U.S. will hit 5.6 million barrels per day in April, an increase of less than 300 barrels per day over March, the EIA said in its monthly drilling productivity report on Monday. The increase would be the smallest since February 2011. If the EIA’s projection holds, April’s production would be a drastic decrease from a record-breaking surge in 2014; in 10 of the last 16 months, U.S. oil production gained at least...

The number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States fell by 17 this week, as energy companies facing lower crude prices reduced the rig count for the fourth straight week, data from oil services firm Baker Hughes showed on Monday. The oil rig count dropped to 1,482 in the week to Jan. 2, its lowest level since March, the data showed. The number of oil rigs has declined in nine of the last 12 weeks since hitting a record high of 1,609 in mid-October. The number of rigs remains up more than 100 from the same time last...

What are the most active crude oil-producing regions in the United States? The Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's rig counts. Among more than 1,500 oil rigs in operation around the nation as of early November, more than 560 were in the Permian Basin and more than 200 were in the Eagle Ford Shale. By comparison, about 190 rigs were operating in the Bakken Shale. And at third quarter's end, the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale housed 7,787 and 3,541 wells, respectively, while 2,062 wells were located in the Williston Basin, which...

In the latest sign that falling oil prices are pinching shale producers, Goodrich Petroleum Corp. announced Wednesday that it will dramatically trim its budget next year and consider selling off its Eagle Ford assets. The Houston-based exploration and production company is among the smaller publicly traded drillers in the Eagle Ford, operating about 30,000 net acres in the South Texas play, according to third quarter data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. In the first half of next year, Goodrich will explore “strategic alternatives” for all or a portion of its Eagle Ford acreage to give the company greater flexibility to expand...

U.S. crude oil production will rise 115,000 barrels of oil per day in January, according to Energy Information Administration data released Monday. Next month’s total will be nearly 2,000 bpd more than December’s rise. Drilling efficiencies in the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Permian Basin shale plays account for most of the production increase. EIA data showed that rigs in these plays will get about 50 bpd more than they did last month, good for a total increase of 103,000 bpd. The Permian Basin is still the largest U.S. shale play, increasing to 1.87 million bpd. The Eagle Fored is second...