3 Opportunities in Booming South Texas

Earlier this week, the Texas Railroad Commission announced that its preliminary numbers for oil production in the Eagle Ford Shale are outstanding. Production climbed 50% from 2011 to 2012, averaging 373,303 barrels per day. That growth is significant, and provides investors with some pretty compelling opportunities, so let's take a closer look at what's going on in southeastern Texas.

Eagle eye
The Eagle Ford shale seems to have come out of nowhere. In 2008, oil production in the region was a scant 358 barrels per day -- but take a look at what's happened since then:

Source: Texas Railroad Commission

You can see that the biggest production increase in the short four year history of the play came last year. Keep in mind that the slight uptick at the end of the graph is a mere month's worth of production -- and even that increased by more than 12,000 bpd.

What's the story here?
The Eagle Ford Shale is a geologic wonder that stretches from the southern border of Texas up through to around Austin.

Source: Energy Information Association

The shale's pay zone is thicker than most U.S. plays, with a higher percentage of carbonate material. On top of that, the distinct banding pattern of the Eagle Ford allows producers to target specific commodities for production. In the picture above, the green band is the oil region, the yellow band is for natural gas liquids, and the pink band is for dry gas.

Three winners
This sort of production growth is hard to ignore. The companies behind these staggering numbers are making a killing ... so who are they?

The top producer in the play is EOG Resources . In fact, EOG cranks so much oil out of the Eagle Ford -- 109,776 barrels per day in 2012 -- that it's actually the second largest oil producer in all of Texas.

Another winner here is ConocoPhillips . The company drills the cheapest wells in the industry, and is the second-biggest producer in the shale.

Finally, we have Kinder Morgan Energy Partners . All of the oil and NGLs produced in the Eagle Ford are worthless without transportation and processing infrastructure. Kinder Morgan had the pipeline asset base in the Eagle Ford, and its buyout of Copano Energy will give it a processing footprint, as well, when the deal closes in the third quarter of this year.

More to come?
Producers are increasingly targeting the region, which includes both the Eagle Ford and the Woodbine sandstone formations. This area, cleverly titled "Eaglebine," is northeast of where the bulk of the oil activity is in the Eagle Ford right now. Halcon Resources is one company that plans to make the most of the new sweet spot. The company has nine wells there, and plans to spend $490 million on drilling and completing many more this year.

All this oil still needs a way to get to market, and that's where Enterprise Products Partners comes in. EPD, with its superior integrated asset base, can profit from the massive bottlenecks in takeaway capacity by taking on large-scale projects. To help investors decide whether Enterprise Products Partners is a buy or a sell today, click here now to check out The Motley Fool's brand new premium research report on the company.

The article 3 Opportunities in Booming South Texas originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Aimee Duffy has no position in any stocks mentioned. Click here to see her holdings and a short bio. If you have the energy, follow her on Twitter, where she goes by @TMFDuffy.The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.