Equinor sounds Eagle Ford alarm bell

The Norwegian firm’s exit is another signal that US shale may no longer be the promised land

Norway’s Equinor increased its stake in its Eagle Ford US shale play by 13 percentage points as recently as 2015, increasing its bet on the play’s success. Its November decision to sell its stake to Spain’s Repsol, its joint venture partner, is a further signal of the challenges in making US shale work. Then known as Statoil, the firm entered the Eagle Ford in 2010 through a joint acquisition with Canada’s Talisman Energy, which was subsequently taken over by Repsol. Having upped its stake to 63pc in 2015, Equinor announced in early November that it would sell its operatorship and all of its 69,000 net acres to its partner for $325mn. Repsol will gain 34,000bl/d oe of Eagle Ford production,