Texas Tops Finds From Brazil to Bakken as Best Prospect: Energy

Energy companies in search of oil riches rivaling the biggest finds from?Brazil?to?Angola?are flocking to?Texas?shale, where new wells have triggered a 230- fold increase in crude output in three years.

More than 115 years after a gusher 55 miles (88 kilometers) south of?Dallas?ushered in Texas? first oil boom, U.S. producers such as ConocoPhillips and?Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO)?are counting on the Eagle Ford Shale to boost crude output amid a glut-driven slump in natural-gas prices.

Drilling for oil in the brush-covered plains of south Texas is cheaper and less risky than exploration offshore Brazil. Photographer: J.G. Domke/Bloomberg

A?drilling rig?stands during natural gas drilling operations in the Eagle Ford shale in Karnes County, Texas. Photographer: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg

Drilling for oil in the brush-covered plains of south Texas is cheaper and less risky than exploration offshore Brazil, the largest oil find in the Western Hemisphere in 30 years, and more profitable than the remote, rougher terrain of the Bakken Shale in?North Dakota?and?Montana.

?The Eagle Ford is the top basin we have in the world today,?David Roberts, chief operating officer at Marathon Oil, told analysts and investors on a conference call last month.

Surging production in shale formations has transformed the U.S. energy landscape, flooding the market with gas and boosting domestic?oil production?by 14 percent from three years ago after dropping by a third in the previous 17 years, according to Energy Department data. After worries of a global oil shortage drove prices to record highs above $140 a barrel in 2008, politicians and industry executives now are discussing the prospect of the U.S. weaning itself from dependence on imports.

Doubling Down

Marathon Oil and ConocoPhillips both plan to double their production in the Eagle Ford this year.EOG Resources Inc. (EOG), based in Houston, calls the Texas shale play its biggest source of growth, and last month boosted its estimated recoverable reserves there by 78 percent.

Oil production?in the Eagle Ford jumped almost sevenfold in 2011 to surpass 30 million barrels, still less than Bakken production in North Dakota that exceeded 128 million barrels. This year daily oil production in the Eagle Ford is forecast to expand by 200,000 barrels, roughly the same amount as the Bakken, according to estimates by Wood Mackenzie Ltd. cited by Hill Vaden, an analyst with the industry consultant.

The?South Texas oil?fields are winning a larger portion of producers? investment because it?s easier and more profitable to drill there compared to many prospects in the U.S. and in the world. Wells are faster and cheaper to develop, and the formation is located closer to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, lowering transportation costs.

Higher Prices

EOG said it costs about $5.5 million per well in the Eagle Ford, compared with more than $8 million per well in the Bakken, because of different well configurations. An offshore?Gulf of Mexico?well can cost $100 million, said?Brian Uhlmer, an analyst at Global Hunter Securities LLC in Houston.

Deep-water wells can take five months or longer to drill, compared to a couple of weeks for a well in the Eagle Ford, said Brian Cain, a spokesman for?Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC)

Producers can get a higher price for their Eagle Ford output than they can in the Bakken. Prices for Texas and?Louisiana (USCRLLSS)?crude this week are as much as about $40 a barrel more than production in the?Bakken (USCRLLSS), according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

?The economics there are absolutely stellar,? said Danny Brown, a general manager who helps oversee Anadarko?s Eagle Ford operations. Anadarko has said it is considering selling its exploration properties offshore Brazil.

Less Political Risk

Texas provides a more stable investment environment compared to many international projects, said?Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James & Associates in Houston.

?Clearly, there?s less political risk in Texas than in?Libya, let?s say, or Kurdistan,? he said. Marathon Oil last year had output suspended in Libya during unrest in that country.

The Eagle Ford cuts across a 400-mile swath of southern Texas, according to the Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas production in the state. Producers have unlocked the resource using advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which sends jets of water, sand and chemicals underground to break up rock.

Petrohawk Energy Corp., acquired by?BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP)?last year, first drew attention to the Eagle Ford when it announced a gas find in 2008, a year when futures for the fuel in?New Yorkaveraged more than $8 per million British thermal units.

Surging Production

Expanded use of fracturing, or fracking, across the U.S. caused a surge in gas output that drove prices to a 10-year low this month of $2.204 per million Btu. Meanwhile, crude in New York has climbed 17 percent since the end of 2010 and is trading for more than $106 a barrel.

While drilling has slowed in U.S. shale gas fields such as the Fayetteville in?Arkansas, development has accelerated in South Texas as producers focus on the formation?s oil-rich geology.

ConocoPhillips (COP), the third-largest U.S. oil company, plans to boost production in the Eagle Ford to about 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day by the end of 2012 from more than 50,000 barrels a day in late December.

In last year?s fourth quarter, Marathon Oil closed on purchases in the Eagle Ford for about $4.5 billion, according to a regulatory filing. The company said in February that daily output was about 15,000 barrels of oil equivalent in the formation, with plans for 30,000 barrels a day for the full year of 2012.

ConocoPhillips?rose?0.8 percent to $76.51 at the close in New York. Marathon Oil climbed 0.7 percent to $32.46 and EOG?increased?1.3 percent to $111.73.

The Eagle Ford will help lead a surge in state?drilling permits?that?s on pace to reach 25,000 this year, the most since 1985, said Barry Smitherman, the commission?s chairman.

?It?s by far the most sought-after play anywhere ? not only in this country, but anywhere around the world,? said?Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York.

A Sanford C. Bernstein report last August estimated Eagle Ford production would reach 1.2 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2015, with 750,000 of that being liquids.

?A long-time oil field axiom is that big fields tend to get bigger over time, and that?s certainly the case here,? EOG Chief Executive Officer Mark Papa told investors during a Feb. 17 conference call. ?This continues to be the hottest and highest reinvestment rate-of-return play in?North America.?

To contact the reporter on this story: Edward Klump in Houston at?eklump@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Susan Warren at?susanwarren@bloomberg.net

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