The regulatory agency overseeing the oil and gas industry in Texas has voted to maintain the wastewater injection permits for two companies whose North Texas wells are believed to have caused a series of small earthquakes.
The Texas Railroad Commission decided to allow the permits.
The commission previously ordered hearings after a university study suggested the companies’ wells were responsible for quakes that shook Reno. The study concluded that rumblings in the shallow Ellenburger formation that migrated down the fault into the deepest layer of rock triggered the quakes.
But the commission determined in September that seismicity was likely not caused by injection wells, which store briny wastewater from hydraulic fracturing.
Commission staff testified that the study established a correlation “too small to imply a causal relationship.”
Related:
- Natural Gas Firm Says It’s Not Causing Texas Quakes
- 4.0 Mag Quake in North Texas; Disposal Wells to Be Tested
- No-Penalty Policy a Standard for Oil Wastewater Spills, Critics Say
- Texas Earthquake Swarm Linked to Drilling, Wastewater Injection
- 10 Quakes Recorded in North Texas over 2-Day Period
Topics Texas
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