Rancher Joel Nelson became an outspoken opponent, worrying the 143 miles of 42-inch pipe will pave the way for other industrial development and interrupt the lifestyle he’s led for decades. The Trans-Pecos Pipeline, which depends on federal approval akin to the more controversial Keystone Pipeline, would run from the Coyanosa area in Pecos County and through Brewster and Presidio counties.
Now more than 15 rigs, no longer drilling. “That is the oil and gas activity,” Singh said. at these prices, oil slows down. It will directly affect us. We are directly linkedto the oil and gas industry.”. Guests in town on oil business account for “as much as 70 percent” of his customers at the La Quinta Inn and Suites on Faudree Road.
The congregation didn’t mind. The well is most often just a churning pump jack,. “It’s very quiet,” said Eric Thompson, the church’s pastor, noting his own surprise when he arrived here a few years ago. “And of course it’s not right up next to our building or garage. It’s not that far from the sanctuary, but I’ve never heard it as any kind of nuisance.”.
Water requirements for fracking Permian Basin wells should drop from 551 million barrels last year to 422 million barrels in 2015, according to PacWest, a company recently bought by the Houston firm IHS that tracks industry water usage. PacWest revised water usage as oil prices drop from their June peak of about $104 a barrel.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed on Thanksgiving Day 2014 not to cut production in the face of weaker-than-expected global demand and a supply glut. Oil prices had already been falling for months on concern about weakening demand for crude. But a day after the OPEC decision, the price of U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude fell 10 percent to more to about $65 per barrel, a crash not seen since the Great Recession.
Those were the products of an extended local recession and other factors — like a string of unscrupulous city leaders such as City Manager Bill Brown, fired after city councilors learned he was fudging budget shortfalls by improperly moving capital improvement money into the general fund. The risks of a bust remain for a community still tied to the oil and gas industry, even though economists along with other observers say it is too early to apply such a term to the current slowdown.
The waste, known as produced water, emerges from an oil well after completion and contains potentially harmful organic and inorganic chemicals. Six of the 11 groundwater district members that attended a regular meeting on Tuesday voted unanimously to fine the company, Imperial-based Bugington Energy.
The District 11 Republican attributed that loss to winter snowstorms interrupting the legislative campaign. Now, Conaway said Republicans look to pass a budget by March 1, a month earlier than normal, to allow legislators to focus on 12 appropriations bills. An ultimate goal, he said, is to tackle some sort of major reform of an issue such as entitlement programs through a reconciliation bill, which are the only bills that cannot be filibustered in the senate.
Summit Power Group expects to finalize contracts next week for the clean coal plant planned near Penwell, leaving a final step of closing deals with private investors by Sept. 30 for the multi-billion dollar project to materialize. “We anticipate financial closing in September,” Miller told board members.
That compromise was designed to protect long-standingregulations like those in Odessa and limit city control to above-ground activity. If the bill passes as written, Texas city governments could regulate many of the surface activities that Odessa already does: for example, they could require setbacks to mitigate drilling nuisances, permits to allow city oversight and safety measures such as coordination with fire departments.
The McDonald Observatory sits about 15-miles atop Mount Locke in Fort Davis. The research unit of The University of Texas at Austin is a leading center for astronomical research, education and outreach. Another facility is on Mount Fowlkes. Opened in 1939, the observatory still enjoys some of the darkest night skies in the Unites States and it’s now home to the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, the fourth-largest in the world.
In recent years, the Permian Basin’s oil boom connected the two industries in a new way by bringing a surging crude-by-rail industry to meet takeaway demand as production outpaced the amount of pipeline capacity in West Texas. Now, crude-by-rail is in the national spotlight after three trains carrying crude from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale derailed and exploded in the last seven months.
Odessa police reported Texas Ranger Brian Burney arrested 29-year-old Becerra on Thursday evening at the department, and federal authorities Friday said they were also considering charges. In the meantime, investigators encouraged other possible victims to come forward. The probable cause affidavit that Burney wrote was released and amended on Friday, detailing for the first time publicly that Becerra told two women in separate early-morning traffic stops that he would not arrest them if they allowed him to grope their breasts.
To be sure, average gas prices are lower than they were in mid-August, when the Permian Basin pumped crude so far beyond the existing takeaway infrastructure that the price blowout between Midland and the national benchmark in Cushing, Okla., reached more than $21. Gas prices in Odessa as of Friday were just above an average $3.19 per gallon.
Odessa American
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Corey Paul
City government and business reporter at the Odessa American newspaper.