U.S. shale play
Eagle Ford Shale
The Eagle Ford Shale is an oil- and condensate-weighted play running in a crescent across South Texas. Developed at scale from 2010, its footprint oil output peaked in 2015 and has held above 390 million barrels a year since, while gas output reached a series high of 3.13 Tcf in 2025 (best estimate, incl. allocated volumes).
Key numbers
Well counts are shown on two independent bases — rock-evidenced (a formation assignment backed by regulator-reported formation evidence) alongside the total footprint (every well inside the county-based definition). The two overlap heavily, but neither contains the other: rock evidence follows the formation wherever it was drilled, including outside the county lines. See the methodology for why we don’t infer play membership.
Footprint production by year best estimate incl. allocated
| Year | Oil (MMbbl) | Gas (Bcf) |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 30.7 | 669 |
| 2011 | 96.5 | 951 |
| 2012 | 231.2 | 1,383 |
| 2013 | 383.5 | 1,833 |
| 2014 | 533.6 | 2,229 |
| 2015 | 581.5 | 2,542 |
| 2016 | 459.9 | 2,297 |
| 2017 | 436.1 | 2,184 |
| 2018 | 481.1 | 2,294 |
| 2019 | 503.2 | 2,428 |
| 2020 | 428.9 | 2,192 |
| 2021 | 393.4 | 2,107 |
| 2022 | 400.2 | 2,408 |
| 2023 | 421.5 | 2,704 |
| 2024 | 422.2 | 2,861 |
| 2025 | 421.4 | 3,131 |
Best estimate including allocated and gap-filled volumes; recent periods revise upward as late filings arrive. Figures are aggregates across the full county footprint — a different population from the rock-evidenced cohort above, not a superset of it.
What the data shows
- The Eagle Ford footprint produced 421 million barrels of oil and 3.13 Tcf of natural gas in 2025 (best estimate including allocated volumes).
- Footprint oil production peaked in 2015 at 582 million barrels; 2025 output of 421 million barrels ran at about 72% of that peak (best estimate including allocated volumes).
- 29,013 wells carry a rock-evidenced Eagle Ford formation assignment — a rock lens. The 23-county South Texas footprint is a separate geographic lens holding 100,723 wells of all formations and all trajectories; the two cohorts overlap heavily but neither contains the other.
Footprint definition
| State | Counties in footprint |
|---|---|
| Texas | 23 |
The EIA Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) Eagle Ford region county list.
Go deeper
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