Deep Injection Well in Texas Explodes, Injuring Three

Cour­tesy of the Pearsall Vol­un­teer Fire Department

A fire burns at a well site in south Texas.

UPDATE: This piece has been updated since our last post. The explo­sion occurred at a deep injec­tion well, not dur­ing a frack­ing operation.

Our part­ners in Texas report on an explo­sion and fireat a deep well injec­tion oper­a­tion in Pearsall, Texas.

From StateIm­pact Texas:

On Thurs­day night a fire and explo­sion rocked a dis­posal well near Pearsall, Texas in the Eagle Ford Shale. This after­noon the Rail­road Com­mis­sion of Texas, which over­sees drilling in the state. sent the fol­low­ing statement:

“A Rail­road Com­mis­sion inspec­tor responded around 5:30 p.m. Thurs­day, Jan. 19, to a stor­age tank fire at a salt­wa­ter dis­posal facil­ity oper­ated by High Roller Well, LLC, south of Pearsall on State High­way 581, south of Pearsall. Pre­lim­i­nary infor­ma­tion pro­vided to the inspec­tor indi­cates that while a truck was unload­ing salt­wa­ter with a skim of con­den­sate (liq­uid hydro­car­bons) into a col­lec­tion tank, welders were work­ing nearby and sparks from the weld­ing may have ignited vapors around the stor­age tank, caus­ing the explo­sion. A fire­wall around the stor­age tank site con­tained spilled flu­ids, which were picked up with by a vac­uum truck.

No vio­la­tions of RRC rules were found, and the High Roller Well LLC lease is in com­pli­ance with Com­mis­sion rules. As injuries were reported in this inci­dent, the lead inves­ti­gat­ing agency for this inci­dent would be the fed­eral agency, OSHA, which needs to be con­tacted for fur­ther information.”