Fracking brings oil boom to south Texas town, for a price

[unhappycamper]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-texas-oil-boom-20140216,0,7621618.story



Since 2008, hydraulic fracturing oil drilling technology has been tapping the rich Eagle Ford shale formation, transforming Carrizo Springs in good ways and bad. Nobody knows how long it will last.

Fracking brings oil boom to south Texas town, for a price
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
February 15, 2014, 1:00 p.m.

CARRIZO SPRINGS, Texas — Just a few years ago this was a sleepy town of 5,600, and people eked out a living from the land. They farmed, worked ranches and leased their property to hunters to make a few dollars.

Now, an oil and gas boom is transforming the economy of south Texas, turning Carrizo Springs into a busy city of at least 40,000.

Texas oil companies, tapping a vast formation called the Eagle Ford shale, have nearly doubled oil production over the last two years and by next year are expected to produce 4 million barrels a day. That would catapult Texas ahead of Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates to become the fifth-biggest oil producer in the world.

Property owners who have seen the state's fortunes rise and fall during oil booms in years past — before the aging oil wells that first spurted "Texas tea" went dry — are suddenly making new millions selling and leasing, earning them the nickname "Eagle Ford Hillbillies." The region is set to reap more than $90 billion in the next decade.