San Antonio, Texas, Oct. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- San Antonio-based Petro Waste Environmental LP (“PWE”) today announced expansion into the Eagle Ford Shale with the commencement of construction on its DeWitt County Landfill. Already the largest oil and gas landfill operator in the Permian Basin, with four Railroad Commission of Texas (“RRC”)-licensed landfills, the DeWitt County Landfill will be PWE’s first facility to operate in the Eagle Ford. Construction is scheduled for completion in January of 2019. The company also holds a permit for a second landfill in McMullen County scheduled to open in the third quarter of 2019.
“As the recovery in the Eagle Ford has taken root, Petro Waste is seeing a growing demand for our services,” said Petro Waste Founder and Chief Executive Officer George Wommack. “Many of the customers we serve in the Permian Basin also have considerable operations in the Eagle Ford. The development of the DeWitt County facility will enable us to provide the same level of service in the Eagle Ford that they’ve grown accustomed to in the Permian.”
Located on 204 acres south of State Highway 72, in Nordheim, the DeWitt County Landfill will accept oil- and water-based mud, oil- and water-based drill cuttings, contaminated soil, and RCRA-exempt non-hazardous exploration and production (E&P) waste. It will also provide washouts and other ancillary services. The facility is wholly owned and operated by Petro Waste Environmental LP.
Petro Waste operates four oil and gas waste landfills in the Permian Basin – the Deep Six Landfill in Reeves County and the Big Lake Landfill in Reagan County, both of which opened in June 2018; the Orla Landfill in Reeves County, which opened in April 2017; and the Howard County Landfill, which opened in September 2017. In addition, PWE holds an RRC permit to build a 115-acre waste disposal facility in Pecos County as well as an additional Eagle Ford permit in McMullen County.
Wommack said the Petro Waste team is extremely proud of its conviction in the long-term fundamentals of the Texas oil and gas industry over the past five years and its commitment through the industry’s downturn. During a period when other oil and gas infrastructure companies cut back or halted development work, Petro Waste aggressively pushed forward with permitting and construction activity in an effort to ensure PWE’s customers would have the landfill infrastructure in place when customers chose to send rigs back into the field. This gave Petro Waste the ability to construct the largest E&P waste landfill platform in the Permian Basin and with the opening of the DeWitt County Landfill, Petro Waste takes a major step toward establishing that same kind of robust platform in the Eagle Ford Shale.
The exploration and production of oil and gas creates various forms of waste that must be processed and disposed of according to strict regulations set by the Railroad Commission of Texas and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In recent years, technological advancements have helped E&P companies extract hydrocarbons from the earth more efficiently, but these new techniques have increased the volume of non-hazardous solid wastes and high-solids-content waste fluids. These wastes consist primarily of oil-based drilling muds and cuttings and high-solids-content frack flow-back water. The historical lack of infrastructure capable of efficiently processing and disposing of these waste streams near drilling sites previously made it necessary to truck large quantities of the waste over long distances to the few existing facilities capable of accepting the materials.
Petro Waste has addressed this infrastructure shortage. The company has constructed highly advanced, RRC-permitted waste-processing and disposal facilities throughout the Permian Basin and is currently doing the same across the Eagle Ford Shale.
The increasing public interest in the use and disposal of E&P waste will likely lead to more stringent regulation, an even higher level of engineering standards in facility design and the construction of more institutional-quality facilities. Petro Waste is building its facilities and training its personnel with that future in mind. Through its innovative, forward-thinking operations, Petro Waste is reducing environmental impacts of the oil and gas industry today, and those benefits will only multiply as the company expands operations to other plays throughout the United States.
“Our commitment to our customers is always at the forefront of everything we do,” said Wommack. “We aim to help them streamline their businesses from the well site to the waste site, while cutting transportation costs, and protecting the environment and the public safety. That has always been our pledge, and it is our pledge today.”
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ABOUT PETRO WASTE ENVIRONMENTAL LP
Petro Waste Environmental LP is building one of the largest networks of oilfield solid waste-processing and disposal facilities in the United States, strategically located throughout the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale and other active plays across the country. The company provides all forms of non-hazardous E&P waste-processing and disposal. Petro Waste is continually adding new facilities to ensure its customers have access to waste disposal facilities that meet federal and state guidelines as close as possible to their drilling sites. For more information, visit http://www.petrowastelp.com.