In America’s busiest oil field, roughly $1 million worth of natural gas goes to waste each day, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Shale drillers in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico say they have no way to move the gas—a byproduct of oil drilling—to market because there aren’t enough natural gas pipelines. Instead, they are getting rid of the excess gas by setting it on fire, a practice known as flaring.
Companies flare about 3% of the gas they extract in the Permian. But production in the basin is so high that the volume of gas burned every day would be large enough to supply the daily needs of states such as Montana or New Hampshire, by some estimates.
The flaring also produces greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2 million cars.
Shale drillers are flaring with the consent of state regulators.
Until more natural gas pipelines and storage facilities are added, the only alternative to burning gas would be to reduce some of the area’s lucrative oil production, which has supercharged the region’s economy and boosted overall U.S. crude output to a record of around 11 million barrels a day.
Texas officials say they expect the issue to resolve itself eventually once the necessary infrastructure is built.
“There’s nothing for us to do,” says Ryan Sitton, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas operations. “If gas becomes a waste product, people will flare it.”
