Breaking news!

The O'Connors motion for a rehearing has been granted by the Texas Supreme Court. And, Jerry Patterson came to visit.

Ancient History

I think I need to write a book. There is so much more to this saga than can be put on a blog. My insight into ExxonMobil's mindset on these old leases originally came from one of the old Humble Oil/ Exxon board members. Heck, he might have been chairman of the board. His name is Tom Barrow. ExxonMobil used to hold royalty and minerals in millions of acres in their Employee Trust Fund. Around 1996, when XOM decided to inventory much of their HBP tracts, they sold off the mineral and royalty interests. They knew they wouldn't be producing things for awhile - until they had depreciated the reserves they booked as cash. Two retired XOM engineers got a loan and bought the whole fund. The fund had 25% of the royalty in the McGill Bros lease. When I saw this transaction, I rang up the new owners and introduced myself. The new owners had a little company with Tom Barrow who liked to go in and take over these old fields and run them. XOM is not in the business of running older fields. Their lift cost is 40%. At one meeting with Tom Barrow, he explained to me that it would be impossible to get the old Kelsey because XOM had this whole proven reserve scheme and depreciation business going on. The ExxonMobil merger apparently involved a delicate balancing of books using large acreage tracts to offset other production. Barrow was very familiar with the Kelsey. The group seemed to salivate over the old Kelsey as they knew that so much had been left behind. The two engineers had both worked at the Kelsey. For whatever reason, I've always had access to people in the know. I don't know if Barrow is still alive. I think he was in his 80's when we last visited. When I have the chance to visit with someone like that, I really pay attention. Prior to the inception of the blog, I had many enlightening encounters with older people like Barrow. All of those bits and pieces are part of my character composites. It's just a good story.

The saga of the McGill Bros (which is probably about the same saga of all the other big XOM tracts) really started to take a sinister turn around 1985. I think the current XOM CEO was the guy in charge of South Texas when all of these pits got buried. He might have been the one to make the call to walk away from the Gas Plant purge pits. What a strange twist that would be. It's a long and sordid tale. I think I should write a pre-blog book. The blog only covers the current goings-ons. But this story was a long time in the making.

Big Hogg/Patron Grande Seismic shoot

Some hazy figure gave me this map of a local seismic shoot. It's to the west of the McGill Bros. Supposedly, a big one is planned that covers the McGill. I'll get that map. Hopefully. I love when blog readers send me maps and documents. You can email or snail mail maps, documents, interesting discovery from other lawsuits.... whatever. Mail is cool.

Elizabeth Burns

P.O. Box 100

Santa Elena, Texas

78591

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Four pilgrims die. Oil company and ranch sued.

About a year ago, four pilgrims in a fake oilfield truck driving thru our next door neighbors, the Jones Ranch, rolled over and died. The Jones Ranch is on the north side of the McGill. Human traffickers and smugglers drive thru the McGill Brothers and then the Jones Ranch to come out north of the Border Patrol Checkpoint. The families of the dead pilgrims have now sued the Jones Ranch owners and the mineral lease owners, the drilling company, etc. for wrongful death. El Paso has a protective order that prevents the McGill Ranch from refusing entry to anyone who wishes to come on the ranch. El Paso said that it is too much of a burden for them to identify their subcontractors so they just got a blanket restraining order. It's going to be interesting when some pilgrims in fake oilfield trucks die on the McGill Bros. The suit is filed in Brooks County. I'll get it and put it on the blog. It has implications for all the land owners and the oil companies operating here.

EOG and Petrohawk JV on the King Ranch

Big Oil Jr.'s Cousin told me that EOG and Petrohawk just finalized a deal with XOM to develop 4 divisions of the King Ranch and he thought they were going to do some seismic from Tilden all the way down on to the McGill and further south. He's supposed to bring me a map of the shoot later this week - he said Global is just waiting on Exxon for the permits. Waiting on Exxon.... not exactly the place you want to be.

Big Oil Jr.'s Cousin said EOG and Petrohawk don't want to ship their gas thru the King Ranch Plant because "Exxon steals all the liquids." That was the hold-up in the deal. XOM insists all JV's involve the gas going thru their old Clean Air Exempt King Ranch heap.

Merry Christmas XOMan!

We have 100's of EPA worthy sites -- I decided to start with the Gas Plant, Purge Pit, and abandoned Power Plant. Get a feel for how these EPA cats operate. I'm focusing on PCB's, Chromium 6, and Asbestos. I have to determine what gives XOMan the most grief with regulators. I bumped into Big Oil Jr.'s Cousin in Rio Grande City. I told him I got the O.K. from the family to bring in the EPA. He laughed, "You are such a fucking brat. Any other company would have seen where this was going. Those Exxon King Ranch guys are a bunch of dumb-asses."

Dear Ms. Roberts -
Here are the deeds and plat associated with a property on my family's ranch which I believe has PCB contamination. Humble Oil (a.k.a. Exxon) set up a gasoline refining plant in 1947 and later a natural gas processing plant in 1965. The gas processing plant operated until the early 1990's and now it has been downgraded to a compressor station - all of the time operated by Humble/Exxon/ExxonMobil. From 1947 until 1995, Exxon also had a power plant on the property. The building, transformers, and much of the power plant equipment is still there - the generators were sold a few years ago. There are big transformers with oil dripping down the sides. There has been no clean up at the site, just dirt put on top of pits. I went in to test for PCB's and my tests all had matrix interference and were non-conclusive. Then, XOM got an injunction preventing me from entering the property for further testing.
Across the road from the plant, there is a 9 acre pit. A pipeline was run from the plant to the pit for "fresh water from compressor condensation" and the gas plant cooling tower was also routinely purged in to this pit. I believe here are likely PCB's and Hexavalent Chromium in this pit.
I would like the EPA to come and investigate these sites.
In addition to the "fresh water compressor condensation pond" Exxon had two other large open pits on their gasoline plant/gas processing plant which appear to be about 250 feet by 150 feet in old aerial photos. These pits were in use from 1965 until 1989. I have no idea what is in them. THey are now buried under a few feet of soil.
Exxon has owned and operated the location since it's inception and continues to operate the property.
Thanks for your time,
Elizabeth Burns

Polyline Trial Scuffle

Apparently, there was some hearing last week in the Polyline Trial. (El Paso corp is suing me, the ranch and my husband for running over a piece of plastic water line. And then they expanded the suit against me to include tortious interference because of this blog) I'm not really clear what's going on. Neither Camera Shy or myself was notified of the hearing. I ordered the transcripts and should have them in a week or two. Witnesses say that some sort of heated exchange took place in the courtroom and El Paso Corp.'s attorney called the ranch's attorney "a dick". Or maybe it's the other way around. And, supposedly, El Paso Corp's attorney was popping nitroglycerin pills during court. Thank goodness the polyline lawsuit is back in swing - it's guaranteed entertainment.

At the hearing, El Paso Corp asked that the defendants be sanctioned for something. I'm not clear on what. They had wanted me sanctioned for my "Trade Secret my Ass" post at the last hearing. So, maybe that was it. Anyway, the judge refused to sanction anyone. Maybe that judge isn't so bad after all. I'll post the transcripts as soon as I get them in my grubby mitts.

Starr County Adventure

To break up the monotony of future superfund sites and legal battles, I went to see some friends down the road. Here you can see life at a ranchito free of oilfield drama. Las Lomitas is in Starr County - right outside Rio Grande City. My friend Benito and his wife have a native plant nursery at Lomitas and host classes on native plant uses, cooking, and medicine. People who don't live here expect the land to be barren just because it's hot and dry. On the contrary, plant life is very dense. Lomitas ranch is on a caliche base. We have some caliche areas of the ranch - but most of this ranch is sand. The stuff that grows in the sandy loam is more impressive than the caliche stuff at Benitos. We have some places here that look like jungles of thorny brush. This week, I'll try to take you on a tour of areas on the ranch outside the old Kelsey oilfield. We have an incredible variety of plants in areas untouched by drilling and open produced water pits.

New guest at the party!

This week, I had the chance to visit with my friend Big Oil. For those of you who haven't read the blog from the beginning, Big Oil is an 82-year-old oilman. I have turned to him over the years for advice on various matters. He introduced me to the "nuisance threshold" concept.

A few months into the blog, he rang me up. "If you want to bring XOMan to his knees, bring up the PCB's." PCB's are bad. Old compressor oil was sometimes 100% PCB oil. PCB's get in the pipelines, they are in condensation pits, the are in paint, compressors, blowdowns.... all over any pre 1980 oilfield. They never break down. It was a crime not to inventory and remediate. All of this PCB business came up with the Toxic Substances Control Act in the 1970's. The laws were specific - any site where PCB's were used had to be inventoried, reported, and plans made to clean them up. No exceptions. Compressor sites were on the top of the list. Here's the list of Exxon's compressor sites that were registered with the EPA in 1980.

CLICK TO VIEW

Big Oil told me that Exxon just sold the majority of these contaminated compressor sites off in the late 1980's and thru the 1990's rather than clean them up. And.... Big Oil said, "Prior to 2003, the Toxic Substances Control Act specifically defined sale of property with known or suspected PCB contamination as "banned commercial trade in PCB's." Ooops. Exxon thought they had washed their hands of these properties by selling these properties. But, it looks like it's all about to come back to Exxon. It was a crime for Exxon to not remediate the properties, but to sell them was a bigger issue. None of those transactions are valid. I wonder what this means for the Exxon and Mobil merger!

Big Oil told me, "ExxonMobil absolutely fears the EPA. Call them. Bring them on to that ranch. You will never get anywhere with the Texas Railroad Commission or the courts. You need to get out of the dirty gene pool. The EPA does their own testing. They know ExxonMobil has the money to pay them back, so they will pull out all the stops." Get ready for the latest addition to my cast of characters: The EPA. The EPA can put people in JAIL.

I was talking to a reporter yesterday. He asked, "What do you want? Ideally?" I thought for a moment. "I want the EPA to cost ExxonMobil more money than they ever made on this ranch. I want the clean-up to gobble up all the profits ever generated on the McGill Bros. lease. I want XOMan's stock holders to rue the day Exxon set foot on this ranch."

Getting to know the neighbors.

I got out old maps and decided to traipse down to the SW corner of the ranch and meet the neighbors. I can see on the maps that they have old Tank Batteries and huge pits from my aerial photos. I was curious if ExxonMobil remediated when they abandoned the properties. Looks like they did not... above in the photos you can see the Juan Juarez lease (ExxonMobil lease #210690)

Below you can see the E. Trevino Lease (ExxonMobil lease #59637). Looks like XOM just buried their pits here and left behind the pipes and tanks. Both of these ranchitos are now owned by retired couples looking for peace in the country. They bought small parcels - 150 acres. They had no clue they were living on pits or an ExxonMobil lease. One couple bought the land seven years ago, the other couple bought the land three years ago. Look - we even find a Humble open well bore on the Trevino! I wonder if Exxon remediated ANYTHING in the nearly 2,000,000 contiguous acres of old leases they have in Railroad Commission #4. They have not told anyone here that they are living in PCB storage and disposal sites. One couple said, "Every time we have the dozer out, we hit old wells and pipelines. No one has ever responded to a one call - so we figure it's nothing to worry about."

Got Leukemia?

Exxon used to be really busy in Texas.
CLICK TO VIEW
Of course, I'm sure, with the exception of the Kelsey Field.... XOMan cleaned all the PCB's and HSL's in his compressor stations, gas plants, purge pits and pipelines in Texas. It was the law then and it's the law now. It's not like XOMan would have just buried all this stuff and shifted his focus overseas. Just because he forgot to pick up the PCB's at the Kelsey Gas Plant and all the stuff on the McGill Bros.....It doesn't mean all his other sites across Texas aren't squeaky clean.

By the way, HSL means Hazardous Substance List - it's a list of hazardous substances found in oil and gas facilities such as gas plants and compressor stations. HSL's have specific and mandatory clean-up rules. Except, of course, if you are ExxonMobil.

FYI - in 1971, The EPA made a "no pit" order and all of the gas plant and compressor station (and other oilfield area) pits were ordered to be fully remediated when abandoned. Ooops. I know XOMan didn't remediate a pit around here because I've dug them up myself on numerous occasions. His open produced water pits aren't even buried -- they are just still open pits with a scraggly weed or two. Oh, before I forget - here are Mobil's 1980 hazmat generating sites in Texas -- Merge Exxon with Mobil and you get ExxonMobil = a lot of potential assertable claims and grandfathered facilities exempt from the Clean Air Act! With scattered massive clusters of leukemia and sarcoma cancers throughout. It's a huge burden on the tax payer because the majority in South Texans are poor and indigent. Someone has to pay for the treatment.

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Gather round the condensate fountain.

The bad thing about these risers leaking, besides being a wasteful human health hazard, is that deer, pigs, raccoons, badgers, javalinas and cows are attracted to the smell of heavy gas. It has a sweet kind of smell to it. So, they hang around sniffing the gas, licking the riser, and bumping into the riser that is in a precarious state to begin with. If you drive by this riser in the early morning, you will usually see 5 or 6 javolinas scurry off into the brush. The area around the riser is trampled by hoofs and paws.
The General Land Office inspectors told me never to touch or lean on any of these old pipes because they are under pressure and just brushing against them could be the straw that broke the camel's back. I just can't imagine having wild boars, horses and cows rooting around a leaking riser under 650 pounds pressure can be helpful. If ExxonMobil insists on letting things leak, they should have game fence enclosures.

RRC ignores more leaking condensate.

I took the above photos today (November 9th, 2009). I reported this natural gas condensate leak to the Corpus Christi Railroad Commission District Office on Oct 28th, 2009. No response. I sent the following email to the Austin RRC HQ on Oct 31st, 2009.

I keep reporting these leaks and sending the photos and all I get is a sarcastic, "Yea, right." from the RRC. I don't know if the RRC is partial to XOM or just does nothing in general about leaks. I've only reported XOM leaks -- my experience suggests little concern on the part of the RRC.

CLICK TO VIEW EMAIL
Once again, this is an abandoned pipe from the gas lift system. The associated well was plugged years ago. This is gas pressurized to 650 lbs at the Kelsey Compressor Station and pumped into the gas lift system that goes no where but fields and roads. The wells are plugged. shut in or just abandoned. It's not even McGill Bros. gas coming out of our roads and fields. It's STATE lease gas from the State-Marshall and the La Copita. The General Land Office is trying to figure out how to deal with the problem.

I went to see if anyone had looked at the other riser leaking condensate from my last post...... and, NO, it's still dripping condensate and looks even worse. Here is a photo I took this afternoon.

Condensate Lease Worsens.

Over two weeks ago, I featured this same riser in my blog. Here's a movie filmed 15 days later. Now, it's getting worse and has a much louder hiss to it. That's how it goes with leaks. You don't fix them.... they progress. Watch the natural gas condensate evaporate quickly and vanish as it drips down the pole - see that endlessly moist spot around the leak - it's just a steady condensate leak -- it's evaporating, too - just can't tell because it keeps leaking.

I reported the leak to ExxonMobil and then the Railroad Commission office in Corpus. The RRC had a look at the riser, saw no problem and sent me this letter.

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I thought they were mistaken. So, I sent this email to the Austin Railroad Commission office.

CLICK TO VIEW

I got a reply. They would send someone to take a closer look. The inspector returned on November 6th -but still nothing has been done. This pipe is under 650 pounds pressure - with the State La Copita and the State Marshall Gas. It's the gas lift riser for the well #238 that was plugged some years ago. Commingled and compressed at the Kelsey Compressor Station.

ExxonMobil -- nature lover.

At first I thought these were dead javolina floating in the McGill Bros #700 rat hole. It's hard to tell for sure what these carcasses are. They seem to have bushy tails - that's what is throwing me off - they might be jaguarundis. Jaguarundis are an endangered species. YIKES fof XOM! Javalinas have horrible vision and seem pretty dumb. I can't imagine a cat being so stupid as to dive into this cesspool. However, I don't think Javalina's have a tail. Maybe these are badgers. ExxonMobil has a joint venture with Sierra Resources LLC and Rising Star Energy LLC - funded by Natural Gas Partners. This dynamic duo drilled two wells - the McGill Bros #700 and the McGill Bros #701 in 2008. The 700 appeared a promising well until about 12,785 feet. It was at this depth that the substitute mud engineer miscalculated drilling mud volume. Gas started coming up..... Drilling mud was frantically pumped into the well bore. The mud held the gas down and their was a down hole blowout at the boot. (or shoe - I forget what it's called at the very bottom of the pipe). No big deal.... the operators had blow out insurance. They moved over and drilled the #701 - hoping that the blowout of the #700 had not ruined the gas reservoir potential. But the #701 was a dud - the reservoir had been ruined by the #700 blowout. Darn darn darn! Sierra came and plugged the #701 and filled in the rat hole and left. Some insurance company came and plugged the #700 well but just left the wellbore and rathole like this. We asked Sierra about the rathole, "Oh that's not our problem. It belongs to some insurance company." They didn't know the name. I suppose it will just fill in on it's own with dead animals with enough time. Maybe the Federal Game Warden will get to the bottom of it.

The endless absurdity.

After the tractor hit the riser, exploded and charred the poor tractor driver, XOM had no idea how to turn off the gas lift system -- so they shut-in the field and the tractor continued to burn for 6 days - until all the gas was out of the lines. XOMan has absolutely no idea what he has out here or what it's hooked up to.

Now check this out -- another day we were out with the bull dozer and we saw this thing right before dozing into it and blowing up.

So, we got a little closer and cleared out some branches -- low and behold......it's ExxonMobil's La Copita Pipeline!!!

No one that works here for XOM had any idea where this pipeline was. They said Not-Her-Real-Name-Sandra had sent a bulldozer to a neighboring property to clear a section when the neighbor discovered it with a backhoe after ExxonMobil didn't respond to his one call /Dig Tess. Not-Her-Real-Name-Sandra just cleared his ranchito and no one else's. The pipe line is not marked, maintained or mowed anywhere between La Copita and the 14 miles to the Kelsey Compressor Station. (except that one guy who got it dozed on his place - it's been 10 years since that happened - so I'm sure it's once again covered with brush). The La Copita line was put into service in 1952 and has been active ever since. It moves dehy'ed gas at 650 pounds pressure from La Copita to the Kelsey Compressor Station. The pipeline has had NO CATHODIC PROTECTION. At the KCS - the gas is pressurized to 1000 pounds and sold into the Kelsey Lateral. Judging by the condition of the pig launcher - This line has never seen the likes of a smart pig. Much less any pig since maybe 1966.

After we almost hit this pressurized pig launcher, we sent the photo to XOMan's trusty lawfirm - McGinnis Lockridge. XOMan realized he did own this pipeline - had no idea the location, condition and hazard. Solution? Immediately sell the La Copita line to Harvest who agrees to blanket environmental. Why not? They are pretty much judgement proof - although really just a sham company run by Hilcorp. Harvest has been unable to locate the pipeline to even clear and inspect it. Not to worry - that hasn't stopped the La Copita Gas from arriving at the Kelsey Compressor Station.

ExxonMobil cannot supply Hilcorp with a map because XOM has all maps stored in a salt dome and doesn't remember the location of the salt dome. We went out in the brush to try to help Harvest find the pipeline but we need horses to get in there. It's such thick and dense brush. It's still moving all the La Copita Gas. (about 3000-4000 mcf a day) Once the La Copita Gas goes into the compressor station -- it ends up going thru the McGill Bros lease gas lift system and leaking out all over the place. The La Copita line comes in as full liquids compressed to 650 -- says my hazy figure source. How scary is this whole scenario? In the 1990's after the loss of 110,000 bbls of condensate (over a several year period)- XOM did replace two large sections between FM 1017 and the La Copita Dehy. No recovery effort was made for the 110,000 bbls of lost product. Condensate leaks are tricky -- they will travel down pipelines..... and with this speghetti bowl of lines covering all of RRC District 4 - there is no telling where that 110,000 bbls of condensate ended up.

Oh, don't forget that the La Copita lease is another State lease -- State gas going thru the gas lift system and charring tractor drivers from 14 miles over. Keep in mind that ExxonMobil has between 1- 2 million acres still HBP contiguous leases here - we are just a tiny part..... the whole area is a huge cluster of old rotting connected pipes with failed valves. It's just reached the critical point. The network has leaked underground and polluted the ground water for decades -- but now it's starting to come up to the surface!!!! I sent the photo of the tractor on fire over to that Jerry Patterson - he can rest easy knowing that XOM is putting the La Copita Gas to good use here on the McGill Bros. charring volunteer fire fighters. I bet he's mad as a hornet.

Here's the lawsuit of Charred Tractor Driver....

CLICK TO VIEW LAWSUIT

Here are a few obscured risers that I found in the brush this past weekend.... in several, you can actually see the condensate dripping out of them.

Every one of these risers is under 650 pounds of pressure. Up until 8 weeks ago, they were under 1000 pounds pressure. These are part of an unused gas lift system -- the gas lift system still runs instruments on the State Marshall lease on the north -- but to get to the State Marshall lease on the north - the gas goes all the way thru the south side and the north side of the McGill Bros lease. To make it even better...... and to get the General Land Office more pissed off.. this gas is actually coming from the La Copita lease which is 14 miles over and also a State lease. See... the La Copita gas comes into the Kelsey Compressor Station and the Kelsey Compressor Station generates the pressure for the gas lift system. All the McGill Bros wells are basically shut in. So, the compressor station has been taking La Copita gas to inject into all these shut in wells and run the instruments on the State Marshall. This is all because XOMan is nothing but a huge bureaucrat - has no idea where any thing is or what is going on. Thats the way it was set up in the 1960's and it chugs along unattended. In the 1970's the Kelsey Field produced huge volumes of gas -- it was nothing to run the gas lift system. Now the wells have filled with water and not much besides the La Copita Gas goes thru the compressor station. The compressors just compress into the gas lift - it doesn't matter where the gas comes from. Now, try to follow me here.... I know, it's getting kind of complicated...... Injecting shut in wells with 1000 pounds of pressure for decades creates a super-charged formation. ExxonMobil just cut the pressure on the gas lift system to 650 pounds for "safety reasons" (excuse me while I go vomit) So, you now have a super-charged formation that is pressurized to 1000 pounds with pipes going into it that are pressurized to 650 pounds. High pressure gas moves to low pressure areas. What will happen next???

I was explaining this all to the General Land Office inspectors who at first said, "Why would someone do that? That would be insane?" Then they began inspecting and realized that this whole place is very very dangerous. That in fact it does appear that we have a super-charged formation. Even the ExxonMobil field hands say, "Well, that might be. Anything is possible. I don't know who would be in charge of that decision to turn off the gas lift. I just do what I'm told to do."

Oh, by the way, a public highway goes right thru the middle of the ranch and this huge super-charged formation. This gas lift system and all the other pipelines and leaking stuff goes right under Farm-to-Market Road 755. It's a pretty busy road, too. If this place isn't shut down, a lot of people are going to end up dead. I can only hope that my family is in town the day it blows up.

Gas coming out of the road!

I believe there is gas coming out of this road! When I get out to open the gate, I get a whiff of heavy gas - the smell of natural gas condensate. There are some old pipelines running on both sides and also some sort of mystery riser buried in the grass. The riser does not smell strongly of gas. I walked the field on both sides of the road and would get periodic strong whiffs of heavy gases. I even crawled down the road sniffing for the source- my husband just stood their laughing at me and said I looked like a Pointer (variety of dog used for quail hunting - for you non-south Texans) and even had my paw up at times. I started to get a fume induced migraine - so I quit looking. I can smell the gas but I could not find a spot where it was blowing out hard from the road. It's dangerous - this business of heavy gases coming out of the roads. There is a hunters camp right next door. I reported it to the Railroad Commission. The only folks that use this road are trucks packed with pilgrims. It's a paved road that cuts thru the compressor station and goes all the way around the Border Patrol Checkpoint. ExxonMobil should put up some "NO FUMAR" signs - those Central Americans tend to be heavy smokers. I would hate for them to flick a cigarette out on the road while they are on their mecca to Houston. A truck full of pilgrims blows-up -- you are taking out a sizeable group of folks. One day, a calichera truck pulled onto this road with Border Patrol in hot pursuit and dumped a bunch of people. Border Patrol rounded up 110 people - and they didn't know how many got away. These trucks routinely drive this little patch of road. Exxonmobil thinks that leaks in a remote location aren't dangerous because not many people live around here. They don't factor in the pilgrim traffic thru the McGill Bros. lease. An explosion on this road could easily kill more people than an explosion on a city block.

El Paso Corp has an injunction that prevents the ranch or me from stopping anyone from entering the ranch. If I were El Paso Corp - I would put some security at this gate to keep the human smugglers from driving their cargo thru this gate and down this road with the gas leaking out. Someone is going to get killed.

More natural gas condensate bubbling around here.

Hey McGinnis Lockridge - it's a good day for you! You can watch more gas leak on the McGill Bros lease from your plush offices. And, you too, XOMan. I made the movie this evening. I'm on sabbatical! Damn it! I can't get away from natural gas condensate bubbling up!

Really, there are several thousand bbls of condensate swirling around and no one knows where it's coming from. XOMan has gathering pipelines - all the old wells had flowlines going into the gathering line. The wells are shut in or plugged -- but the flowlines are still in place. The flowlines have one way check valves. After 20-40 years, the check valve gasket rots - the one way valve becomes a two-way valve. So, you end up with gas from the big pipeline flowing thru abandoned flow lines until it finds an escape. Also, you get valves stuck or rotten inside the Kelsey Compressor Station which diverts gas to the network of abandoned lines. The pipes go on an on for 100's of miles. Old rotten decayed pipelines spreading the leukemia and other cancers across the land.

I want people to understand that ExxonMobil didn't just bury a bunch of historic contamination in 1990 and that was the end of it. Nope, ExxonMobil buried contamination and continues to dump, leak, waste, lie, and pollute Railroad Commission District 4. This condensate isn't old - it's bubbling out from some old Exxon HBP lease somewhere around here!

As you can see in the movie, ExxonMobil has recently packed this pad with caliche to keep this leak in the sand underneath. See the sparkling white caliche juxtaposed with with the brown caliche 2 inches beneath? Condensate takes the path of least resistance. It will stay in the sand if you pack enough caliche on top. Notice the drag marks from the backhoe bucket? XOMan didn't pack that flowline pipe well enough! That pesky gas found an escape. I can hear and feel the whole area under the drill pad rumbling and shusshing and gurgling with liquids. There is a lot of condensate gushing out under there. It's just the vapors that are coming out of this hole. It brings back memories of when I would stand on the Bubbling Road back when it was still bubbling. Maybe the infrastructure is so far gone now, no amount of fresh caliche is going to hold down the swirling brew.

El Paso Corp needs to secure the ranch - some passing-by-pilgrim or Border Patrol chasing said passing-by-pilgrim is going to get hurt.

UPDATE:

I reported the gas coming out of the ground to the RRC which sent an inspector and found, in fact, there was gas leaking. Turns out it was the full production stream from the well and not coming from the pipeline. All that rumbling and gurgling I could feel under the pad was condensate, saltwater, oil and gas. No telling if ExxonMobil will actually remediate the site or just produce some lab tests that show it's clean. Time will tell.

ExxonMobil: They wrote the book!

Many people don't realize that ExxonMobil (then Humble Oil and Refining) published a book in 1959 with Harvard Business School. The book is called History of Humble Oil and Refining: A Study in Industrial Growth. Available in any business library and easily found used on Amazon.com. I think it's likely to be republished soon with the new title: How ExxonMobil ended up with a Trillion Dollar CERCLA Action. This book outlines, among other things, Humble's almost contiguous 2,000,000 acres in leases between Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande River. There is a whole section about pipelines -- how that clever Humble got ahead by maximizing pipeline capacity. Humble developed the strategy of digging huge open refining pits at every tank battery. This allowed Humble to skim off the grade of oil desired and leave the sludge. Rather than send the whole stream to their refinery in Ingleside, Texas - Exxon dumped the undesirable elements in big pits across RRC District 4. (a region with one of the highest levels of leukemia and other cancers) ExxonMobil used the same pits - some 200 feet by 400 feet -- for 40 years. Endless dumping in the same spots. This is why the ground all over the McGill oozes sludge at 40 inches deep. One pit's contamination can spread for miles. I have found ZERO instances of remediation at any of these pits on any lease in RRC District 4. The Slideshow above is just the pits on the Kelsey Field and a few on our neighbors.

When one combines information gleaned from this epic work (the book - not the blog), testimony from ExxonMobil's numerous litigations for contamination in Railroad Commission District 4, the USDA historic aerial photos, and a set of post hole diggers.... you get a very frightening picture of ExxonMobil's unasserted claims and true environmental liabilities. CERCLA has no grandfathering. ExxonMobil has knowingly allowed people to be exposed to the pits. ExxonMobil still holds the properties in these HBP leases. ExxonMobil has not complied with the Community Right to Know Act. Even worse, ExxonMobil didn't bury a lot of these pits until the early 1990's. ExxonMobil used pits from the 1920's until the 1990's. There are clear records, court testimony and even books written by Humble Oil on the topic. It's only a matter of time before the federal government (which has no statute of limitations constraints) moves into action and forces ExxonMobil to clean it up. This big clean-up is going create a lot of jobs and be great for the economy of Railroad Commission District 4. Finally, some good news in these dire economic times.

Even better -- ExxonMobil has pretty much established thru case law how ExxonMobil is the ultimate ruler of any old HBP lease and the landowners have no rights - ExxonMobil's mineral leases trump any landowner rights or responsibilities. Landowners have no ability to control ExxonMobil or their JV partners -- who I guess will now pitch in with the big clean up.

Chevron's in big trouble, too. We have Chevron sludge pits on the McGill Bros. that aren't even buried.

Someday, a big organization with resources that hates ExxonMobil is going to google something and come across my blog. Perhaps they will get wind of my project in Copenhagen. Hopefully, they will start reading. They will realize how simple it all is. If I figured it out -- basically anyone can grasp the problem. Its so obvious that there is a big mess and ExxonMobil is on the hook. ExxonMobil's stockholders are REALLY on the hook!