Remember my post a few weeks ago:"Two and a half times...

Remember my post a few weeks ago:
"Two and a half times more"
Well, we'll all know very soon now.

EOG Eagle Ford Shale Report Paints Rosy Picture
In a Nov 2, 2010 conference call with investors, EOG chairman Mark Papa gave a glowing estimate of the company?s prospects across the 120 mile swath of the Eagle Ford shale oil window in which they control over 500,000 acres. Most notable in the conference call was a reaffirmation of the .9 billion barrel reserves (net after royalty), and a hint that that figure is about to be raised significantly.
?The bottom line here is that our confidence in individual well results and the total 900 million barrels of oil equivalent net after royalty reserve estimate, have increased since our April analyst conference. Because this is such a huge net oil accumulation, and I believe investors have undervalued this asset,?
Mr. Papa discussed how the Eagle Ford shale play is divided into the ?East? and ?West? areas, with Eagle Ford shale wells in the East such as the Harper #1H producing an initial production amount of 1,070 barrels a day, and the? Cusack ? Clampit wells, at rates ranging from 860 to 1,800 barrels of oil per day, with 1 to 1.8 million cubic feet a day of rich gas each. In the Eastern Eagle Ford shale, the play is divided into two zones at different depths and the rock is thicker. In the West, Eagle Ford shale wells such as the Haynes 1-H north of the town ofTilden, in McMullen county, are producing in the 970 to 629 barrel per day range. There in the Western Eagle Ford shale oil window, the rock is a bit thinner but laterals are being drilled up to 6000 feet to increase production.
Also notable in the EOG conference call was a revelation about the mechanics of ultimate oil extraction from the formation. Some geologists had at first doubted the ultimate recovery of Eagle Ford shale wells. Because the Eagle Ford shale is a ?borderline carbonate reservoir? and not a traditional shale, there is a good amount of flow through the matrix of the rock itself. The reservoir is proving to have much of the same qualities as a carbonate reservoir for ultimate recovery of oil.
In layman?s terms, a carbonate reservoir is a much more porous, easily drained type of rock when it comes to oil and gas. Carbonate rock such as limestone may have channels formed by acidic liquids, natural fracturing, etc, which allow oil and gas to flow through the rock to the wellhead. Many of the world?s largest oilfields such as some in the Middle East are carbonate reservoirs, drilled with vertical well technology. Shale on the other hand is a harder and mostly nonporous rock which requires much hydraulic fracturing before anything will come out of it. What exists in the Eagle Ford shale, is something in between. The fact that wells can now be drilled sideways using horizontal drilling and then hydraulically fractured, has made possible a new frontier when it comes to taking advantage of borderline rock such as exists in the Eagle Ford shale. On a more technical level, Papa discussed the ?bubble point pressure? of the Eagle Ford shale. ?There is an extraordinarily high differential between the initial reservoir pressure and the pressure at which solution gas breaks out of the oil, technically called the bubble point pressure. Across our acreage, the original reservoir pressure averages 7,200 psi and the bubble point pressure averages 2,500 psi. This unusually high spread provides for a larger-than-normal fluid expansion recovery factor. That?s why we?re so confident with our 0.9 billion barrel reserve estimate.? So far the company has had 100% success across an 120 mile window stretching from near Cotulla, TX to Gonzales county. Wells are being fracked in packages, as opposed to fracking just one well, and there have been some delays in getting the required amount of equipment to move forward? at the desired pace. This has slightly reduced the amount of oil the company has expected to bring online in 2011 but is seen as an issue that will be overcome but not until mid 2011. How many Eagle Ford shale wells will be drilled? With a proposed Eagle Ford shale well spacing of somewhere around 80 acres, there are going to be a lot of wells drilled in EOG?s Eagle Ford shale acreage. It may take a lot fewer to produce the .9 billion barrels as was first estimated according to Papa. They had initially given a figure of 2,800 wells to achieve .9 billion barrels of Eagle Ford shale oil production in their leasehold area. Below, a photo of the Haynes 1-H, an Eagle Ford shale well drilled by EOG Resources in McMullen County.
http://eaglefordshaleblog.com/2010/11/27/eog-eagle-ford-shale-report-paints-rosy-picture