The oiliest county in Texas has seen its new natural gas production capacity more than double as drillers home in on their most profitable acreage. The peak output rate from new gas wells in Karnes County has surged 134 percent since January, estimates from Drillinginfo show. The only other county in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale patch where new gas capacity’s gaining is Live Oak, about 50 miles southwest of Karnes, the Austin-based energy data provider said. Gas producers are focusing on the most prolific parts of their plays as they grapple with the worst price collapse since 2008, and Karnes County has long been a sweet spot in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale. The 20,000-square-mile shale formation supplies about one-sixth of the nation’s crude. Karnes County, southeast of San Antonio, is home to “top-tier acreage,” Chris Smith, senior research analyst at Drillinginfo , said in a telephone […]