San Antonio, Texas, Dec. 05, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — San Antonio-based Petro Waste Environmental LP (PWE) today announced the company has begun construction of its Deep Six and Big Lake landfills in the Permian Basin. The Deep Six landfill facility is a joint venture with Trinity Environmental Services I, LLC (Trinity), a Guggenheim Partners portfolio company, and is located adjacent to Trinity’s Deep Six saltwater disposal facility, which is separately owned and operated by Trinity. The Big Lake facility in Reagan County is wholly owned by Petro Waste. Funding for the Big Lake facility and Petro Waste’s share of the Deep Six landfill facility is being provided by Petro Waste’s equity sponsor, Tailwater Capital. Once the Deep Six and Big Lake facilities open in 2018, Petro Waste will have more landfills in operation in the Permian Basin than any other oil and gas waste disposal company.

“These are two very strategic locations for our company, giving us a foothold in the Southern Delaware Basin, as well as in the Southern Midland Basin,” said PWE founder and chief executive officer George Wommack. “PWE already operates a Northern Delaware Basin landfill in Orla and a Northern Midland Basin facility in Howard County, and now we have all four corners of the most active play in the U.S. covered.”

The Deep Six landfill facility will be built on a 212-acre tract in Reeves County, Texas, 10 miles south of the city of Pecos. Construction has already commenced, with the landfill’s opening anticipated early in the second quarter of 2018. Deep Six will accept oil-based mud, water-based mud, oil-based drill cuttings, water-based drill cuttings, contaminated soil, and RCRA-exempt non-hazardous exploration and production (E&P) waste, as well as provide washouts and other ancillary services.

The Reagan County facility will be located on a 245-acre tract on Hwy 137, approximately 12 miles north of Big Lake, at the Stiles turnoff. In addition to providing the same services as the Deep Six facility, the Big Lake landfill will sell fresh water and high-quality aggregate. Construction is scheduled for completion in the second quarter of 2018.

Petro Waste’s other two Permian Basin facilities are the Orla Landfill, which opened in April and is also now part of the joint venture with Trinity, and a Howard County facility located between Stanton and Big Spring, which opened in September. Both facilities offer the same services as the Deep Six and Reagan Landfills. Petro Waste also holds a permit in Pecos County to service development around the Permian Basin’s Alpine High play, as well as a permit in DeWitt County and a pending permit in McMullen County to service anticipated future activity in the Eagle Ford Shale.

The exploration and production of oil and gas creates various forms of waste that must be processed and disposed of according to strict regulations set by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In recent years, technological advancements have helped E&P companies extract hydrocarbons from the earth more efficiently, but these new techniques have increased the volume of non-hazardous solid wastes and high-solids-content waste fluids. These wastes consist primarily of oil-based drilling muds and cuttings and high-solids-content frack flow-back water. The lack of infrastructure capable of efficiently processing and disposing of these waste streams near drilling sites has made it necessary to truck large quantities of the wastes over long distances to the few existing facilities capable of accepting the materials.

Petro Waste Environmental is addressing this infrastructure shortage. The company has been constructing highly advanced, RRC-permitted waste-processing and disposal facilities, and strategically locating them throughout the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford Shale, with the goal of having a PWE facility within 30 miles of any drilling activity in those plays.

The increasing public interest in the use and disposal of E&P waste will likely lead to more stringent regulation, an even higher level of engineering standards in facility design and the construction of more institutional-quality facilities. Petro Waste is building its facilities and training its personnel with that future in mind. Through its innovative, forward-thinking operations, Petro Waste is reducing environmental impacts of the oil and gas industry today, and those benefits will only multiply as the company expands operations to other plays throughout the United States.

“We are strategically positioning our facilities to enable oil and gas producers throughout the Permian Basin to operate more cost-efficiently, while keeping environmental impacts to a minimum,” Wommack said. “The Deep Six and Reagan Landfills are a big step forward toward realizing our company’s mission.”