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 have been linked to a series of small earthquakes.
The Texas Railroad Commission decided to allow the permits, despite a study concluding that rumblings in the shallow Ellenburger formation that migrated down the fault into the deepest layer of rock triggered the quakes.
The commission held hearings after a study by Southern Methodist University scientists suggested the companies’ wells were responsible for the North Texas quakes.
The TRC determined in September that seismicity was likely not caused by injection wells, which store briny wastewater from hydraulic fracturing. TRC staff said the study established a correlation “too small to imply a causal relationship.”
Topics Texas
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