Digital Permitting Debuts for Oil, Gas Operators in Texas

First Online Permit Filed in Initiative Announced By Energy Secretary Richardson in February 1999

A Texas oil field operator linked to the Internet from a computer terminal in Dallas today filed the first digital application for an oil drilling permit - debuting a new era in paperless permitting for the Nation's oil and gas industry that was set into motion last year by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

The historic first transmission took place at a workshop aptly named "Putting the Internet to Work".

Flanked by attendees at the workshop, the operator - an employee of Burlington Resources - received an electronic acknowledgment within minutes indicated that the permit had been registered with the Texas Railroad Commission, the state's oil and gas regulatory agency. Paper forms had previously required several days or even weeks to process.

From Washington, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson sent his congratulations. "Today Texas and the nation's oil industry took an important step into the digital future, replacing stacks of paper forms with a few computer keystrokes and mouse clicks. This initiative can save the industry and its regulators millions of dollars and countless hours of labor," Richardson said in an e-mail to the Railroad Commission.

In February 1999 Richardson had announced that the Energy Department would provide a grant to the Railroad Commission for one-third of the $2.1 million cost to develop and test the Internet-based permitting system called the Electronic Compliance and Approval Process (ECAP). [Previous announcement]

The current pilot project is focusing on electronic filing, review and approval of drilling permits, which comprise about 10 percent of the more than 150,000 compliance permits filed in Texas each year.

Following the pilot program, plans are to expand ECAP to include more complex drilling permits, additional attachments, and reporting capabilities. By September 2001, the Commission plans to integrate the system with existing geographic information and other mainframe computer systems, ultimately adapting the paperless process to the entire regulatory life cycle of oil and gas wells in Texas.

With ECAP eliminating paper handling and duplicate data entry, and shortening by two to four days the time previously required for approval, the Commission expects to reduce the costs for each permit filing by $200 or more. If Texas operators use the completed online process for only 25 percent of the State's oil and gas permits, the Commission estimates that the full economic benefits of ECAP in Texas could reach more than $17 million annually.

Extending ECAP technology to the full regulatory and compliance process in other oil-producing states could provide cost savings amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars.

The "Putting the Internet to Work" workshop, which featured applications of the Internet to oil and gas industry business, was hosted by the Department of Energy-supported Petroleum Technology Transfer Council, the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology and the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association.

-End of TechLine-

For more information:
Nancy Comstock, National Petroleum Technology Office, 918-699-2059, e-mail: ncomstoc@npto.doe.gov