USGS Survey: Eagle Ford 2018

Update

Later, 7:15 a.m. CDT: my bad. It turns out I did post this the day the USGS released the information. I simply forgot. Whatever. I will leave this post up for those who may have missed it, like me.

Original Post 

A reader sent me this several weeks ago. For some obscure reason my editor let me down and failed to get this story moved to the top of the stack. But, better later than never. [Later: huge apologies to my editor -- she did get this to me and I did post it the day of the release. Link here.]

It seems I recall that the USGS was going to re-survey the Eagle Ford -- I can't remember, but apparently it did and here are the results, released June 22, 2018:

• for the Eagle Ford, the USGS 2018 survey
• 8.5 billion bbls of crude oil
• 1.9 billion bbls of NGLs 
• 66 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
• of note: the Eagle Ford ranks in the top 5 USGS assessments for both oil and gas; generally, a formation produces primarily oil or gas, but the Eagle Ford is rich in both

Compare with the USGS 2013 survey of the Bakken (linked at the sidebar at the right): 7.4 billion bbls.

From the press release:

This estimate consists of undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in continuous accumulations.

Undiscovered resources are those that are estimated to exist based on geologic knowledge and statistical analysis of known resources, while technically recoverable resources are those that can be produced using currently available technology and industry practices. Whether or not it is profitable to produce these resources has not been evaluated.

The USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources of onshore lands and offshore state waters.

The Eagle Ford is tracked here.