EOG keeping production at fourth-quarter levels with $6.5 billion capex plan

EOG Resources Inc., Houston, plans to maintain its fourth-quarter production pace in 2026 and complete 585 net wells across its portfolio, a dip from 645 in the past 2 years.

Executives of EOG say capital spending this year will be $6.3-6.7 billion, a slight increase from $6.3 billion last year and $6.2 billion in 2024. That capex will help support output in line with the 546,000 b/d oil and nearly 1.4 MMboe/d total production of the last 3 months of 2025.

On a Feb. 25 conference call with analysts, Jeff Leitzell, the company’s chief operating officer, said today’s macroeconomic environment has led executives to keep production flat versus fourth quarter. For the full year, that level of activity—which comprises 24 rigs and 10 completion crews—will have oil production grow 5% and total production climb 13% from 2025’s averages.

Among the capex plan’s components are:

• Further developing new zones in the Delaware basin, where the company operates about half of its US wells, and running an average of 13 rigs and four crews. The goal is to better use the infrastructure already in place and look to generate consistent returns for the next decade or more.
• Generating more efficiencies in the Utica basin, where EOG bought Encino Acquisition Partners last year and has been extending laterals and cutting on-site infrastructure costs. The plan this year is to complete 85 net wells in the basin with three rigs and three crews.
• Completing 40 net wells in the Dorado basin in Texas and growing natural gas production to 1 bcfd after exiting 2025 at 750 MMcfd. Doing so, Leitzell said, will make Dorado EOG’s fourth “foundational” asset alongside the Delaware, Eagle Ford, and Utica.

“We’re still highly confident that Dorado is the lowest-cost gas supply in the US with exceptional geographic location with its proximity to the Gulf Coast and premium markets,” Ezra Yacob, chairman and chief executive officer, said on the conference call. “We really are growing into not only the emerging North American natural gas demand that we see, but really some of the contracts that we have. Now we can supply many of our contracts from multiple basins.”

In the last 3 months of 2025, EOG produced a net profit of $701 million on more than $5.6 billion in total revenues. Income was down from late-2024’s $1.25 billion because of higher gathering, processing, and transportation costs as well as higher impairment charges related primarily to write-downs of assets working on the Barnett and Woodford zones.

Shares of EOG (Ticker: EOG) were down slightly to $123 and change in afternoon trading on Feb. 25. Over the past 6 months, they are essentially flat, leaving the company’s market capitalization at around $67 billion.