Oklahoma pipeline operator Williams is asking a judge to overturn a decision by state regulators allowing one of the pipeline company’s potential customers to burn off natural gas in a controversial industry practice known as flaring — instead of moving and selling the gas.
In a Nov. 20 lawsuit filed before Judge Jan Soifer with the 345th State District Court in Austin, Williams and its subsidiary Mockingbird Midstream Gas Services sued the Railroad Commission of Texas over the agency’s Aug. 6 decision allowing Dallas oil and natural gas company EXCO Resources to burn natural gas produced by 130 wells in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas.
With methane prices low, natural gas viewed as a byproduct of more-valuable crude oil production and various legal issues, EXCO has been using temporary permission from the Railroad Commission to burn off natural gas from those wells since Dec. 2017.
In its lawsuit, Williams argues that the company’s natural gathering pipelines connect to EXCO’s wells and would allow the company to move and sell the gas instead of burning it off in a practice described as both “wasteful and environmentally harmful.”
In a filing with the Railroad Commission, EXCO contended that it does not have a natural gas gathering agreement with Williams and even if it did, the using the system would be too costly and does not have enough capacity.
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A court date for the lawsuit remains pending. The Railroad Commission does not comment on pending litigation.
Texas oil and natural gas companies burned an estimated 752 million cubic feet of natural gas per day during the third quarter, way up from about 650 million cubic feet daily in the second quarter, data from the Norwegian research firm Rystad Energy.
