Wyoming DEQ issues 8th update to oil and gas permitting guidance

May 13, 2016
Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued its eighth update to its Oil and Gas Facilities Permitting Guidance, the first since 2013. A primary goal for this guidance update was to align requirements for concentrated development areas with the newer areas of activity across the state, it indicated.

Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued its eighth update to its Oil and Gas Facilities Permitting Guidance, the first since 2013. A primary goal for this guidance update was to align requirements for concentrated development areas with the newer areas of activity across the state, it indicated.

It said that key changes for this guidance included:

• Establishing a combined Statewide Area and Concentrated Development Area.

• Requiring controls for emissions of volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants of 6 tons/year or more from tanks and dehydration units at single wells in the new area.

• Requiring controls for truck loading emissions of 6 tons/year or more of volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants for all areas of the state.

• Updating control requirements for pumping unit engines.

• Describing DEQ’s electronic air quality permitting system (IMPACT).

DEQ said it began work on the update in January 2014. It said that its guidance has described best available control technology for oil and gas operations in the state since 1997. State law requires this for construction or modification of production wells, it said.

The agency issued its guidance on May 12, the same day that the US Environmental Protection Agency established methane emissions limits for new oil and gas wells and storage tanks.

Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].