WSJ Article: America’s Biggest Oil Field Is Turning Into a Pressure Cooker

quote:

---

Shale drillers have turned the biggest oil field in the U.S. into a pressure cooker that is literally bursting at the seams.

Producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico extract roughly half of the U.S.’s crude. They also produce copious amounts of toxic, salty water, which they pump back into the ground. Now, some of the reservoirs that collect the fluids are overflowing—and the producers keep injecting more.

It is creating a huge mess.

A buildup in pressure across the region is propelling wastewater up ancient wellbores, birthing geysers that can cost millions of dollars to clean up. Companies are wrestling with drilling hazards that make it more costly to operate and complaining that the marinade is creeping into their oil-and-gas reservoirs. Communities friendly to oil and gas are growing worried about injection.

---

quote:

---

Swaths of the Permian appear to be on the verge of geological malfunction. Pressure in the injection reservoirs in a prime portion of the basin runs as high as 0.7 pound per square inch per foot, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology.

When pressure exceeds 0.5 pound per square inch per foot, the liquid—if it finds a pathway—can flow to the surface and pose a risk to underground sources of drinking water, Texas regulators have said in industry presentations.

The fracas above ground is raising questions about how the Permian can sustain red-hot production without causing widespread environmental damage that could leave taxpayers on the hook—and complicate the region’s economic plans. The basin is trying to lure data centers with cheap land and energy and has plans to become a hub for burying carbon dioxide captured at industrial plants and sucked out of the air.

---

quote:

---

The industry is working to clean up its act, but solutions to treat and ditch meaningful volumes of water far from the oil fields remain years away.

Oil-and-gas executives said solving the wastewater issue is an industry priority.

---

quote:

---

In the Delaware portion of the Permian, its most prolific region, drillers crank out between 5 and 6 barrels of water, on average, for every barrel of oil.

---

quote:

---

In 2021, the Railroad Commission of Texas, the agency that oversees the oil-and-gas industry in the state, began cracking down on deep disposal. Companies pivoted to shallow reservoirs, which now absorb roughly three-quarters of the billions of barrels of water that they inject in the Permian every year. The shift largely cured the tremors but has created unintended consequences.

Pressure is mounting, and saltwater is being kicked out over vast distances. It is migrating up some of the decaying wells that litter the Permian, forcing companies and regulators to play a protracted—and expensive—game of whack-a-mole.

In 2022, a 100-foot column of saltwater erupted from an abandoned well in Texas’ Crane County near the unincorporated community of Tubbs Corner. Chevron, which says it didn’t own the well, plugged it at the request of the Railroad Commission. But nearly two years later, water started to ooze from a different well in the same area, a sign that bottling up the geyser likely repressurized the subsurface and triggered the new outburst, scientists said.

It took the Railroad Commission about 53 days and roughly $2.5 million to plug that leak. Eventually, the agency quietly shut in the injection wells that it said were likely causing the increase in pressure.

---

quote:

---

Regulators in Texas face a tough balancing act. Oil-and-gas production contributes too much to the state’s economy to be curtailed, but letting the situation fester risks turning supportive communities against the industry. Their task is complicated because New Mexico restricts disposal, so most of the Permian’s wastewater is injected in Texas.

---

quote:

---

The glitchy Permian plumbing is forcing producers to drill through zones of high pressure, fortify their wells with additional strings of casing, and use protective coating against corrosive saltwater. All this means that companies are having to spend more to extract oil and gas.

---

quote:

---

In addition to these headaches, some drillers report that water is migrating into their oil-and-gas reservoirs. Pecos Valley, a Permian operator, earlier this year filed a lawsuit against the water-handling company NGL, saying water it had injected escaped and flooded four oil-and-gas wells. NGL has denied the allegations.

Oil-and-gas fields in South Texas, North Dakota and Appalachia also produce briny water but in much smaller volumes than in the Permian. As this basin matures, wells keep getting wetter.

The industry is testing technologies to evaporate the liquid faster and strip it of salt so it can be reused outside the oil patch. Companies are crafting plans to release scrubbed water into rivers. Texas lawmakers have passed legislation to help advance these solutions.

But researchers said these alternatives won’t alleviate the near-term need for injection. Katie Smye, a researcher at the Bureau of Economic Geology, said there are areas of the Permian where injecting wastewater can be done safely and the industry must put more work into delineating these zones.

“If we say no to deep injection due to earthquakes, and we say no to shallow injection due to surface flows, and we’re not taking into account the science of areas where injection is proceeding safely,” she said, “then what?”

---