"Faced with a pipeline shortage in rural South Texas, companies bleed off the gas into flares that release air pollutants and greenhouse gases in amounts that collectively rival the output of a half-dozen oil refineries," Tedesco and Hiller write. "Not even the state's top regulators at the Railroad Commission of Texas who oversee the oil and gas industry know how much gas is going to waste and polluting the air in the Eagle Ford Shale."
"Analyzing millions of records, the newspaper found the volume of wasted gas in Texas has reached levels not seen in decades—and the South Texas shale field is largely to blame," Tedesco and Hiller write.
Among the newspaper's findings:
• No region in Texas flared as much gas as the Eagle Ford Shale. Since the early days of the energy boom in 2009, statewide flaring and venting in Texas surged by 400 percent to 33 billion cubic feet in 2012. Nearly-two thirds of the gas lost that year—21 billion cubic feet—came from the Eagle Ford.
• The rate of Eagle Ford flaring was 10 times higher than the combined rate of the state's other oil fields.
• The total volume of wasted gas in the shale from 2009 to 2012 was almost 39 billion cubic feet—enough to meet the annual heating and cooking needs for all 335,700 residential customers who relied on gas last year in CPS Energy's service area, which includes San Antonio.
• Despite assurances by the Railroad Commission that gas flares are safely regulated, the Express-News found seven Eagle Ford operations with some of the highest amounts of flaring had failed to obtain the necessary permits from the agency.
• Eagle Ford flares pumped more than 15,000 tons of volatile organic compounds and other contaminants into the air in 2012, state pollution estimates obtained by the Express-News state.
Other stories in the series are Flares emitting more pollution than refineries, Top flaring sites lacked state oversight and While the gas burns, companies explore solutions.
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