🇺🇸🛢 America’s Biggest Oil Field Is Turning Into a Pressure Cooker

Drillers’ injection of wastewater is creating mayhem across the Permian Basin, raising concern about the future of fossil-fuel production there

Shale drillers have turned the biggest oil field in the U.S. into a pressure cooker that is literally bursting at the seams.

Producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico extract roughly half of the U.S.’s crude. They also produce copious amounts of toxic, salty water, which they pump back into the ground. Now, some of the reservoirs that collect the fluids are overflowing—and the producers keep injecting more.

It is creating a huge mess.

A buildup in pressure across the region is propelling wastewater up ancient wellbores, birthing geysers that can cost millions of dollars to clean up. Companies are wrestling with drilling hazards that make it more costly to operate and complaining that the marinade is creeping into their oil-and-gas reservoirs. Communities friendly to oil and gas are growing worried about injection.

“It’s one of the many things that keep me up at night,” said Greg Perrin, general manager of the groundwater-conservation district in Reeves County, Texas, where companies are injecting some of the largest volumes of wastewater.

Swaths of the Permian appear to be on the verge of geological malfunction. Pressure in the injection reservoirs in a prime portion of the basin runs as high as 0.7 pound per square inch per foot, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Bureau of Economic Geology.

When pressure exceeds 0.5 pound per square inch per foot, the liquid—if it finds a pathway—can flow to the surface and pose a risk to underground sources of drinking water, Texas regulators have said in industry presentations.

🔗 https://archive.ph/8Dwye

🇺🇸🇬🇱🛢🇩🇰 Greenland's mineral wealth is greatly exaggerated

Exploring and mining in the Arctic is a literal hellscape. The constraints are insane and the costs to overcome them are mooning way past imagination.

Geologically, permafrost is a nightmare. Ground is frozen solid. Normal drilling hits a wall. Building stable foundations for gear is a massive investment.

Operations are far more difficult too. Constant darkness for months in winter. Working 24/7 under floodlights craters efficiency and spikes accident risk.

At -40°C to -50°C, metal gets brittle and just snaps. You need custom alloy gear and keeping fuel/lube from freezing is a constant battle. The diesel/power burn just to keep lights on and engines warm is a nightmare. Immediate Opex blow-up.

Logistics? Absolute disaster. It’s not about digging it out; it’s about moving it.

Zero roads or rails. Everything moves by helicopter, light plane, or ship. Moving ore to a port costs multiples of what normal mines pay. Plus, zero local smelters. The minerals have to be shipped across oceans, burning time and cash.

Shipping windows are tiny. Some fjords/sections of Greenland's coast only accessible a few months a year. You either pay for icebreakers or pray the 1-year supply/export window doesn’t get wrecked by bad weather. If the ship misses the slot, the whole year is lost.

Look at the Citronen Fjord Zn project at 83°N. It’s one of the world's biggest undeveloped Zn-Pb deposits, but it's 2,100km north of Nuuk. Total isolation.

They get a 3-month window to move a year’s worth of cargo. One bad storm and the project is bricked for the season. Ironbark Zinc tried for ages, but it just got flipped to Dubai-based Almeera Ventures. That’s a clear signal on how brutal the Capex and funding hurdles are.

The core issue: does the margin even justify the risk? Building a mine w/ zero infra is a Capex black hole.

Think global warming helps? Think again.

Thawing permafrost is actually trashing existing infra and roads. Extreme weather just jacks up Opex even more.

We’re talking 10-15 yrs from discovery to first ore. If commodity prices crater in between, you're left holding a stranded asset.

This is the reality of mining. Arctic development is 10x harder than anyone thinks. There’s a reason Denmark wasn't aggressive on developing Greenland.

You really think they held back just to protect the Inuit? Give me a break. Money always trumps ESG in the end, no matter the optics.

You can spam 'self-sufficiency' and 'strategy' all u want, but you can't meme your way past physics and economics.

🔗 CrudeOil123