What Is The Eagle Ford Shale?
The Eagle Ford shale, sometimes spelled Eagleford, is a giant new oil and gas discovery that is transforming a wide swath of South Texas.
Geology Of The Eagle Ford Shale
The Eagle Ford shale was formed when organic – rich sediments were deposited in the ancient seas that covered much of North America during the Cretaceous period, between 145 and 65 million years ago. It lies just below the Austin Chalk formation in South Texas and is considered the “mother rock” for oil and gas in that and other formations above it.
The “Eagle Ford shale fairway”, as it is called by some in the business, is an area that is roughly fifty to four hundred miles wide that stretches from Maverick County near the Mexican border, through central South Texas, then curving upward toward Brazos County in East Texas. The Eagle Ford shale has has been known about for decades by geologists, but only with recent improvements in drilling technology can significant amounts of oil and gas now be recovered from it. Horizontal drilling, along with a multi -stage hydraulic fracturing process, which breaks apart the shale with water and sand, are the two main technologies responsible for the making the Eagle Ford shale a viable oil and gas play.
Shale gas and oil are considered “unconventional oil and gas” because they comes from non-traditional wells. Most wells in the Eagle Ford shale are drilled using a method called “horizontal drilling” or “directional drilling”. Horizontal drilling involves drilling oil and gas wells sideways, using sophisticated drilling equipment and directional sensors placed in the drill pipe near the bit. This relatively new technology is revolutionizing how we get our oil and natural gas. Thanks to this innovation, we now have over one hundred years worth of natural gas supplies in the U.S. The Eagle Ford shale formation is turning out to be a huge source of crude oil as well. It has been estimated that the Eagle Ford shale formation may hold more than three billion barrels of oil, perhaps much more.
How Deep Is The Eagle Ford Shale In South Texas?
The dark, dense Eagle Ford shale rock layer lies at a depth of between 2500 and 18,000 feet in South Texas. You can see maps of the Eagle Ford shale here: Eagle Ford shale maps
The Eagle Ford shale play is in the first stages of development. Hundreds of horizontal wells have been drilled, but thousands more are planned across the 400 mile length and 50 mile width of the play. Near the town of Three Rivers on new well owned by Pioneer Resources, the Crawley Unit #1H, is producing over 17 MMcfd, (seventeen million cubic feet of natural gas per day). That’s enough to provide all the natural gas that a medium sized U.S. city could use. As far as oil, some Eagle Ford shale oil wells are producing as much as 2000 barrels of oil per day. The central and northern parts of the play contain large amounts of natural gas liquids and crude oil, the deeper zones to the south contain dry natural gas.
Wells like this are causing investors and others to wake up to the potential of the Eagle Ford shale. This incredible discovery has the potential to boost the economy of this region and provide new jobs in an area which has traditionally been lacking in opportunities. Towns like Three Rivers, Tilden, George West, Cotulla, Pleasanton and many others will see increased tax revenues, new business and more jobs. Land owners who own the mineral rights will see some nice checks coming in over the next few years.
The Eagle Ford shale area will become the fastest growing area of Texas in terms of new business and job creation in the next decade.
Why The Eagle Ford Shale and Other Shale Gas and Oil Reserves Are A Big Deal
Similar shale beds are located all over the world. Suddenly we are no longer in an energy crisis, with an abundance of natural gas from the Eagle Ford shale and Marcellus shale. Many people believe that we only have to switch to this more abundant form of energy to solve our dependence on foreign oil. As oil man T. Boone Pickens and others maintain, it would be wise for our nation to begin to switch to natural gas as a motor fuel, and as a bridge to an eventual alternative energy economy.
With more than a century’s worth of natural gas in shale formations like the Eagle Ford it is a resource we cannot ignore. Natural gas can even be cleanly used in fuel cells. Thousands of home fuel cells are already in use across the country, producing cheap electricity, heat and hot water for homeowners with very little maintenance.
United States Oil Production Boosted For First Time Since 1970′s
In addition to natural gas, shale formations across the United States are producing great volumes of crude oil, which is helping to reverse a downward trend in U.S. oil production. The Energy Information Administration recently reported that U.S. oil production was actually on the upswing, with the Bakken Shale of North Dakota and the Eagle Ford shale of Texas, as well as offshore discoveries in the Gulf Of Mexico contributing to the trend.
For more information and maps of the Eagle Ford shale see: The Eagle Ford Shale Blog