The EPA is cracking down on the lifeblood of the Permian Basin, the oil and gas industry.
The Environmental Protection Agency handed down new regulations Thursday, cutting down on methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
Many in the Permian Basin depend on the oil-field for survival, and during this downturn, the EPA is making things a little more difficult.
This, according to Stephen Robertson of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.
“It’s not going to be good,” Robertson said. “I don’t know how bad it could be, or even if bad is the right way to say it, but it’s adding regulations to an already hurting industry. It doesn’t really do that much for the environment anyway. So it’s really just a way to try to increase the cost to operate in the oil and gas industry.”
The EPA released 600 pages of the new standards, even though as of a 2014 study from the EPA itself, petroleum systems emit only 9.3% of methane totals in the U.S.
“We haven’t seen this being a big problem at all in our industry and you’re not seeing big explosions and fires from the methane emissions, ” said Kirk Edwards, President of Odessa based Latigo Petroleum.
Edwards said methane emissions are something they try to cut down on already.
“Nobody in the energy business wants to vent any type of methane from any of our oil and gas facilities because that would be wasteful for us to do,” said Edwards.
According to Edwards, the issue of methane emissions isn’t nearly as crucial as other problems spanning the globe.
“It’s a shame to see this happen, when there’s so many bigger things in this world we could be working on, instead of methane emissions,” said Edwards.
The EPA said this is the first step on the path to regulate existing oil and gas operations.
(Information from YourBasin.com)
