Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham announced Aug. 10 that the Texas General Land Office and the Railroad Commission of Texas have plugged 42 orphaned wells on state-owned submerged land, including 16 wells off High Island in Jefferson County, as part of the agencies' ongoing statewide Coastal Protection Project, according to a news release from the GLO.
The Railroad Commission of Texas issued 693 original drilling permits in July 2026, including 612 permits to drill new oil or gas wells, according to an Aug. 6 news release from the agency.
The chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas has called his fellow commissioners and the state's grid operator into a special open meeting this Friday, Aug. 14, to talk through the policy questions hanging over the Permian Basin power-line buildout — while promising that no final decision on the Howard-Solstice line, the biggest piece of that buildout, will be made in the room.
The Railroad Commission of Texas reported that statewide crude oil production reached a preliminary 129,523,336 barrels in May 2026, an average of roughly 4.18 million barrels per day.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas is reminding residents of consumer protections designed to keep electricity service connected during periods of extreme heat, according to an Aug. 4 news release from the agency.
Gov. Greg Abbott has announced a Texas Energy Fund grant totaling more than $8 million to strengthen electric reliability for members of the Bailey County Electric Cooperative Association in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains, according to an Aug. 5 news release from the governor's office.
The Railroad Commission of Texas has issued its second permit for a deep geopressured geothermal well dedicated to energy storage, approving a well in Galveston County for Quidnet Energy Deployment LLC, the agency announced in a July 30 news release.
Texas has stopped telling data centers whether they can plug into the state's power grid, and no one has said when it will start again.
Texas' upstream oil and natural gas sector recorded its fourth consecutive month of job growth in June, adding 400 positions, the Texas Oil & Gas Association said in an Aug. 4 news release citing newly released Texas Workforce Commission data.
The Texas Senate Committee on Natural Resources will gavel in at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, to hear from the state's three major natural-resource agencies and take invited and public testimony on two interim charges — the rollout of last session's produced-water and oilfield-waste laws, and the state's defenses against catastrophic wildfire.