Special Year in Review Publication Highlights Railroad Commission’s 130th Year

AUSTIN – Ongoing RRC site visits to natural gas facilities show that significant progress has been made by Texas facilities to supply the fuel in emergency weather conditions.

As the recent freezing weather at the end of December demonstrated, much needed quantities of natural gas did flow to electric generating power plants and into people’s homes for heating.

It’s very important to understand that daily gas production can fluctuate from hour to hour due to a variety of reasons, such as scheduled maintenance and scheduled downtime for safety reasons. Average statewide daily production can vary as much as more than 2 billion cubic feet per day, even during late spring. Given Texas’ production totals, this means more than 90% of the daily stays online.

Daily natural gas production is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to natural gas supply. Gas produced from wellheads needs to be processed and transported to end users.

The vast majority of the state’s natural supply is stored in underground storage facilities and packed in major pipelines. For this reason, RRC inspectors not only visit natural gas wells but, more importantly, natural storage and pipelines.

As of mid-December, the state had approximately 448 billion cubic feet of working gas in underground storage, and another 30-35 billion cubic feet is typically in pipelines at any given time.

Since the end of last summer, RRC inspectors have conducted site visits at more than 3,800 natural gas facilities representing oil and gas leases with nearly 22,000 active wells, gas storage facilities that account for about 76% the state’s gas storage, and more than 350 pipelines transporting natural gas.

During the site visits, which are continuing throughout the winter, RRC inspectors have been directly observing measures operators are undertaking to provide gas supplies under normal and emergency conditions. Inspectors have physically observed what devices natural gas facilities have put in place and processes to harden their assets against cold weather.

About 98% of the facilities visited had been winterized. The remaining 2% or so were in the process of winterizing at the time when RRC visited them in the last few months.

“We have been putting boots on the ground and eyes on the state’s critical assets,” said Ted Wooten, RRC Director of Critical Infrastructure. “Based on what our inspectors have observed, natural gas producers and pipeline operators have taken necessary actions to ensure gas will continue to flow this winter to people’s homes and power plants.”