Eagle Ford Shale Oil Company seeks permit to dispose oil & gas waste underground in Maverick County

By: Jose G. Landa
Eagle Pass Business Journal©

Friends Energy, L.L.C. of P.O. Box 632214, Nacogdoches, Texas 75961, a Texas Limited Liability Company operating in the Eagle Ford Shale region in northwest Maverick County, Texas, is applying to the Railroad Commission of Texas for a permit to dispose of produced salt water and other oil and gas waste by well injection into a porous formation allegedly not productive of oil and gas in northwest Maverick County.

Friends Energy, L.L.C. proposes to dispose of oil and gas waste into the Edwards Formation, Quemado No. 1, Well No. 1, located 16 miles Northwest of Eagle Pass, Texas, in the Los Cuatros Field (Cretaceous) in Maverick County, Texas. The oil and gas waste water will be injected into the geological strata in the subsurface depth interval from 2,500 to 3,500 feet in the Edwards formation in northwest Maverick County, Texas.

Anyone interested in requesting a public hearing regarding Friends Energy, L.L..C. ‘s application to dispose and inject oil and gas waste and produced salt water into the Edwards Formation in northwest Maverick County, Texas must request in writing a public hearing within 15 days of publication of the Notice (January 3, 2013) to the Environmental Services Section, Oil and Gas Division, Railroad Commission of Texas, P.O. Box 12967, Austin, Texas 78711, Telephone (512) 463-6792. Any person, ranch, water user, company, entity, or organization requesting a public hearing must show they may be adversely affected by Friends Energy, L.L.C. application. Anyone desiring more information regarding Friends Energy, L.L.C. application may contact the Railroad Commission of Texas at the address and/or telephone described above.

Some studies in the United States have shown that oil and gas waste and/or produced salt water injected into underground geologic formations contain toxic and hazardous chemicals which may have carcinogenic causing agents and/or may contaminate underground water sources or reservoirs.

During the 1990’s, the State of Texas denied an application by an investment group to design, develop, and operate a low-level radioactive waste landfill near Spofford, Texas due to an active seismic fault and the potential to contaminate the Edwards Underground Aquifer and/or Formation and the Rio Grande River discharge zone, affecting water supplies or sources of the City of Eagle Pass, Maverick County, Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, and other communities.