Eagle Ford Shale takes flight
21 November 2011
Despite US natural gas prices in freefall, it’s full-steam ahead for Texas’s liquids-rich Eagle Ford play, providing an economic shot in the arm for the state
Shaun Polczer, CARRIZO SPRINGS, TEXAS: It’s a typical lunch shift at Los Poncho’s cantina in Carrizo Springs, southwest Texas. It’s packed with oil workers and rig hands looking to escape the 100°F (37°C) heat with a glass of iced tea and a bowl of chilli-tortilla soup. The cantina is a family run business and Rosica – everybody calls her Rosie – and her brothers are tending tables, while mama doles out homemade Mexican specialties in the back.
Thanks to the influx of oil and gas workers, business is better than it’s ever been. The day’s soup is sold out barely half an hour into the lunch rush. “It’s like this every day,” Rosie says. “It’s really taken off in the last year – since the rigs came.”
Carrizo Springs is one of Texas’s oldest towns – and also one of its poorest. According...