With oil production on the rise in Texas, drilling companies increasingly are burning off the natural gas that surfaces with the oil because they can't get pipelines in place fast enough to transport it.
“There's just more demand for pipelines than they can currently keep up with,” said James Mann, a lawyer who represents pipeline companies.
But the process — called “flaring” — is raising concerns among environmentalists, who say it releases nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and other emissions with public health risks into the atmosphere.
The number of flaring permits approved by the Texas Railroad Commission has increased sharply in recent years, from 107 in fiscal year 2008 to 651 in fiscal 2011, according to Ramona Nye, an agency spokeswoman. This corresponds with a dramatic increase in demand for drilling permits.
The commission issued 9,347 drilling permits in the long-active Permian Basin last year, up from 3,369 in 2009. The West Texas region, which is 250 miles wide and 300 miles long, has generated at least 260 million barrels of oil in each of the past three years.
The gushing flow from South Texas' Eagle Ford Shale is more recent, made possible by a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing. Oil production from the Eagle Ford has spiked from 130,802 barrels in 2004 to more than 30 million barrels last year. Drilling permits issued for the shale area also have risen dramatically in recent years, from 26 in 2008 to 2,826 in 2011.
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