As U.S. E&Ps deal with a slew of shorter-term challenges such as broken supply chains, labor shortages, and infrastructure constraints, they’re also paying increasing attention to a longer-term concern: “inventory exhaustion.” There is a growing chorus of analysts asserting that oil and gas producers’ inventory of top-tier drilling locations has been significantly depleted as the nation’s major unconventional resource plays mature. Many producers have continued to rein in their capital spending and husband their current resources and several have boosted inventories through bolt-on acquisitions. Premier E&P EOG Resources has taken a different approach, emphasizing organic exploration that has led to the discovery of two new significant plays over the past two years, including the recent announcement of a new Utica Shale combo play that it describes as being “almost reminiscent” of the early Delaware Basin. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss EOG’s dramatically different approach to building inventory and dive into the details of its new Utica discovery.

