On October 24, 2013 Energy Corporation of America (ECA) opened an office in Billings in conjunction with an announcement of plans to expand development of oil and gas leases along the Beartooth and Bighorn mountains. ECA CEO John Mork said he envisions bringing “the Bakken to the Big Horns [and the Beartooths] … and fundamentally changing these areas the way it has changed other areas of the United States.”

This post looks at ECA and their current activities in Carbon County.

About ECA
ECA was founded 50 years ago, and since 1979 the company’s corporate headquarters has been located in Denver. The company’s operations are totally dedicated to oil and gas drilling, initially on the East Coast and in the Appalachian Basin from New York to Kentucky, where they have been active for 45 years.

To give you an idea of the scope of their operations, ECA owns over 1 million acres from New York to Tennessee, and operates over 4,600 wells and over 5,000 miles of pipeline. The company has more than 10,000 drilling locations, with over 15 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of resource potential and more than 400 billion cubic feet (BCF) of proved reserves. ECA also has the capability to transport over 55 mmcf/d through multiple pipeline systems. In the past five years, ECA has drilled as many as 100 wells in a year, with up to 6 active drilling rigs operating at one time.

Suffice it to say they are a big organization with tremendous capabilities.

In its Rocky Mountain Division, ECA holds multiple high-potential oil prospects and is beginning development of its reserves of over 60 million barrels of oil in Carbon and Stillwater Counties. ECA also has shallow gas holdings and owns and operates existing gathering and transportation infrastructure.

Source: ECA Web site

ECA also has operations in Texas and New Zealand.

Current ECA activity in Carbon County
The information in this section comes from publicly available sources. You will need a password to view it.

Total oil production in Carbon County has been declining slowly since 2000, from a high of nearly 56,189 barrels per month in July, 2000 to its current level of 31,788 barrels per month in August 2013.

ECA currently has two operating wells and one injection well in Carbon County, all from their Foothills lease (8464):

• ECA Foothills 1-H (API 25-009-21297), completed in November, 2011. The well has produced 6416 total barrels of oil since that time, including 86 barrels in October, 2013. It has also produced 111,684 MCF of gas.
• ECA Foothills 2-H (API 25-009-21299), completed in September, 2012. The well has produced 21,305 total barrels of oil, including 657 in October, 2013. It has also produced 20,700 MCF of gas.
• Foothills 6-D is a nearby waste water injection well.

The chart below shows total ECA production by month from these two wells.

The map below shows the location of the two wells. The green marker represents the two producing wells, and the red marker is the waste water injection well. The pink markers are inactive wells.

ECA is clearly just ramping up their activities in Carbon County. We know they received an additional lease approval for a well near Belfry in December.

We can use this information to track their activities going forward.

Edit:
At the request of a commenter below, I have expanded the map. The A marker on the map represents the McKay Ranch Airport, just east of the ECA wells. Absarokee is at center north, Stillwater River Road runs along the top, Red Lodge is in the bottom right, and Highway 78 is at the center. Click on the map to expand it.