The Eagle Ford Shale rig count remained flat this week, with our data showing 53 rigs running across our coverage area by midday Friday.

In recent Eagle Ford news, the Texas Railroad Commission announced it issued 673 original drilling permits in November 2016 compared, a drop from the 687 issued in November 2015.

Read more: Texas Drilling Permits Down

A total of 652 oil and gas rigs were running across the United States this week, a gain of 15 over last week. 129 rigs targeted natural gas (three more than the previous week) and 523 were targeting oil in the U.S. (13 more than the previous week). The remainder were drilling service wells (e.g. disposal wells, injection wells, etc.) 321 of the rigs active in the U.S. were running in Texas.

Baker Hughes reports its own Eagle Ford Rig Count that covers the 14 core counties. The rig count published on EagleFordShale.com includes a 30 county area impacted by Eagle Ford development. A full list of the counties included can be found in the table below.

Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Rigs

Seven rigs in the Eagle Ford region targeted natural gas this week with the commodity increasing to $3.66/mmbtu.

46 Eagle Ford rigs were targeting oil with WTI oil prices gaining slightly to $53.02. 

A total of 47 rigs are drilling horizontal wells, zero are drilling directional wells and six are vertical.

Karnes County leads this week with 12 rigs in production. See the full list below in the Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County below.

Eagle Ford Shale Drilling by County

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Texas Drilling Permits Down

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What is the Rig Count?

The Eagle Ford Shale Rig Count is an index of the total number of oil & gas drilling rigs running across a 30 county area in South Texas. The South Texas rigs referred to in this article are for ALL drilling reported by Baker Hughes and not solely wells targeting the Eagle Ford formation. All land rigs and onshore rig data shown here are based upon industry estimates provided by the Baker Hughes Rig Count.

Read more at bakerhughes.com